Pwn Age: 31337 AD is a twin stick deathmatch style shooter, does it blast the opponents into next week or is it left hiding in the corner crying for its mummy? Read on to find out.
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The idea behind Pwn Age: 31337 AD is a tried and tested genre, you control a spaceship played on a top down view of a 2D map and must kill anything not on your team. After a set number of kills or other criteria such as capturing a flag are reached that player or team are declared the winner. What can make or break a game however is if there a good online community to play with, this is after all primarily a multiplayer game.
Over the past few days I tried a number of times to join a Xbox Live game and unfortunately there were no other players. I really wanted to experience the online multiplayer side, I gave it a fair attempt over the weekend when there are usually more people playing so this should have been the best time to find a game. It might have been bad timing or there simply not enough people have purchased the game and we kept missing each other.
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With the online multiplayer disappointment behind me I tried the Single Player campaign. The game has a story that rival mining companies are attacking each other and the space ships are sent out to attack and defend the cargo ships. You play as one of these companies and must complete the tasks such as kill a number of enemies, capture the flag and so on. The campaign mode is basically a bunch of game modes with a bit of text between levels. It is nothing amazing but it works fine and will keep you occupied for a while.
Fortunately there is one more multiplayer mode in the form of local games which can either be played up to four players on one 360 or system link for more. This gave me some of the online multiplayer experience as you are presented with a menu with a wealth of game settings to choose from. Up to 24 bots split over four factions can be selected to play against, there is also a choice of sixteen maps to play on.
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The action is fast paced and with a higher number of players/bots the game can become very hectic as you start to shoot one enemy only to be taken out by another coming up from behind. It can be unfair at times as you can spawn right next to an enemy ship which usually results in a fast death. The CPU AI is good but I found them to be quite handy with their guns with very good accuracy, even when not in the screen which I sometimes found annoying.
As mentioned there are sixteen maps to choose from which vary in design and size, some are suited for deathmatch and mirror style maps for capture the flag. The designs are good and there is enough to keep the game feeling fresh. Each map has a variety of weapons to collect including lasers, 3 ways shots and rockets. New ship models are also unlocked as you progress through the game which are presented in a series of comprehensive statistics screens which show information such as your kills, deaths and streaks.
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The game is presented fairly well with easy to use menus, setting up a game was straightforward. The graphics are average but seem to work fine for this game genre as too much clutter would just make it harder to see the enemy. The sounds are done fairly well and voice overs are present such as when you get multiple kills or killstreaks, these are always good to hear.
Pwn Age: 31337 AD costs 240 :MSPoints: which I think would be worth the money if there was a good online community to play against. I could see this game being great fun if there was an online community but I do not think it will happen as the game as already been out for a month. As it stands, with just the campaign and local multiplayer, the game can be rather short lived if you do not have the means to play with friends regularly.
You can find more information on Pwn Age: 31337 AD as well as download the trial and full version of the game on the Marketplace.
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