War of the Roses

So to review War of the Roses, I'll be breaking one of my base rules - I don't do multiplayer. However, with the amount of time I've put into this game, well, let's just say that I need to do something to justify it. While, as always, I will tell you about the game based on my experience with it, given the ever changing nature of multiplayer games with content updates and the constantly in flux player base, your results may vary. So, ESRB like warning covered.

War of the Roses is medieval combat game set in the 1400s in a war torn England, as the House of York and the House of Lancaster battle it out. The devs claim historically inspired warzones, weapons, and the like, and while everything is certainly old, my knowledge of English history, battles, and military equipment from this time period can be summed up in one word - nothing. In fact, the only time I've even heard anything about period accuracy mentioned outside the game, it's been in flame wars over which game is better - this or Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

What I do know is that they had swords, axes, and blunt weapons during the 1400s, so at least that part is accurate.

The game contains the typical gametypes for online shooter games, so if you're familiar with Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Counter Strike, or Battlefield, you will know exactly what to do here. Assault is a multiobjective attack/defend gametype. Attackers will be doing the usual stuff, like breaking down doors, pushing rams, and capturing points, while defenders will, you know, be doing their best to make sure that doesn't happen. Team Death Match is your standard slaughter fest, with a map running a predetermined time before the winners are announced. Conquest is a push/pull type attack and defend, where both teams attempt to capture the 3 or 5 points - in order - to secure victory. Pitched Battle rounds out the grouping, and is a short round of death match where you only get one life per round.

Generally I'd play Assault or Conquest, with much more of my time being spent in Conquest since Assault was only introduced in the Kingmaker update in March 2013, or roughly as the group of friends I was playing this game with began to migrate to other titles. The interesting thing with Conquest is that you don't win simply by controlling all the points, but rather by controlling the most points the longest, as you'll see there is a sliding scale at the bottom of the screen that pushes from one side to the other as a team continues to hold points. However, to make things really interesting, if you capture all the points, that bar pretty rapidly shifts, enough so that, while you may not get a clean win, your team will still maintain a majority at the end of the round. I've been in quite a few battles where, while our team had been steadily loosing for the first 25 minutes or so, holding only 1 point out of 3, we made a sudden comeback, captured all three points, and watched as the final score ended up in our favor by 51 - 49.

One of the downsides to objective based multiplayer, no matter what game you're playing. No one ever sticks to the damn objectives. It's kind of important when you're down as much as in this screen shot.

The combat in this game is interesting, though your experience will depend on what route you decide to take. Melee combat can be a bit tricky to really get a handle on, because it isn't the simplest thing to accomplish, mostly because there are plenty of things going on besides just swinging your axe that determine what kind of damage you'll end up doing. First up is simply attacking. All you have to do is press and hold mouse 1, determine your attack direction by moving the mouse accordingly, then release it to attack. In this way you charge up an attack by holding down the mouse longer, as well as select between a left, right, overhead, or uppercut swing. Charging up an attack will deal more damage, but can take enough time that you'll be open to an attack by a faster enemy. Now say it's time to block an attack. If you've got a shield, you just use that, otherwise you'll have to match the direction in which you block with that of the incoming attack. So if your enemy is doing a side swing from your left, you must block left, while an uppercut or stab requires you to block down. Your HUD helps with this by giving you a clue as to which direction your enemy is preparing to attack from, though I will admit that I initially mistook this for the standard "receiving damage from this direction indicators" in most first person shooters.

Those are just the basics of melee combat. To really get good at it, you'll need to figure out how to follow your parry with a riposte, feinting when attacking to lure your opponent to over committing to a block. There are hitboxes on weapons to consider, such as a longer axe that only does damage out at the blade, rather than along the shaft. Momentum is also a factor in determining how much damage you'll do, such that if you flip your mouse to pick up extra speed you can end up taking a so-so attack and turning it into an instakill. There are also penalties for missed attacks, and much, much more. It is recommended that you take some time to practice this, either by heading to a duel server, or trying the new practice mode that launched in June 2013.

This new practice mode is nice for figuring out hitboxes, and generally getting an idea of where your attacks will connect, but to really get a feel for the parry/riposte/feint system, you'll need to visit a duel server to get a friend to help you out. In this case, the hitbox is towards the end of the axe, so my actual attack landed on the shield, not the helm.

Ranged combat is a bit different, and up until June 2013 only came in two flavors - bow or crossbow. Each has it's benefits. Bows are fast, and you can pepper a target with arrows very quickly, such that if you're a good shot, or using the right arrows, you might even be able to down the murderous brute with a long sword before he closes the thirty yards to your perch. The downside is that bows generally don't do as much damage as crossbows, and that you can only keep them drawn for a limited time before you need to relax again. It's sort of a bow minigame, where if you release the string at the right time, you'll deal some good damage. Crossbows on the other hand are slow, and their minigame comes in when you attempt to reload them, since they have both an active and passive reload stat, and you can make them reload faster, but generally never fast enough to get more than one shot at someone charging at you. The advantage is that crossbows are powerful, and deal substantial damage. Even better is that they stay drawn, so can take your time and pick off someone, often at a great distance, making crossbows the sniper like weapon of this game. The final ranged weapon, though they are short range, are handgonnes, which were just added in June 2013. I'd like to tell you about them, but unfortunately they are extremely expensive to purchase (more on that system later), so I've never actually gotten to use one.

The final setup you can mess around with is Cavalry. It's pretty much what you would expect, as you're on top of a horse, armed with a lance and your secondary weapon, and you're allowed to use either while riding. Cavalry has an interesting role, though it depends on how well coordinated your team is, and how good you are at lining up your lance on someone's head. Things I've seen accomplished in this capacity: flanking the enemy and taking our archers or crossbowmen covering the point; taking the really long way around while both teams are fighting over point C, and instead heading to your next point, since you own C but haven't made progress towards B yet, thus allowing your squadmates to spawn on you and quickly force B to neutral, and then capturing it for your own team; epic horse battles; harassing people, including your own team, by running over them, at least, that is, until someone gets a lucky shot off at your horse, sending you flying.

I got to be quite good with the crossbow, and at times like these I was well rewarded, since I managed to deal a ton of damage, landed a headshot, and did enough to instantly kill the person in a single long distance shot. Oh, in case you're wondering where my target was, if you see that blue name by the rocks, roughly three quarters of the way towards the lake, well, the guy I shot thought he was going to get some easy execute points by finishing off my teammate over there.

No matter what class you decide to play as, one of the things you'll need to consider is where on your enemy you're attacking, which is part of what makes this game so interesting. This especially applies to melee, or rather, this is where you may notice it the most, but it's relevant everywhere. You see, there are various armor levels, such as plate, mail, leather, cloth, and bare skin, all of which impact the kind of damage you can deal on a successful hit. You select what armor you'll wear, broken down by body and helmet, but don't think that just because someone has plate for both pieces means that they don't have weak spots. This is where it becomes important to aim your attacks, because an inch can make a huge difference between a glancing blow on a plate helm, and sinking your blade into your opponent's visor slit. If you find that you still aren't doing enough damage, or you just can't hit those vulnerable spots, even if your enemy keeps his visor up, you may want to switch up your weapons, ammo, or attack style, since things like blunt weapons or stabs with swords deal more damage to plate, while piercing or cutting works better against softer armor. It's really not something you might realize right away, but there is a pretty complex system the forms the basis for this game.

I've already talked about how War of the Roses contains three classes. What I haven't talked about is the number of ways you can customize those classes. Basically, there are a ton of options. You've got plenty of choices from the weapon you use, the material it's made out of, the edge, fighting style, and more. Some weapon options change things like the active versus passive reload on crossbows, or change your bolts or arrows to add a temporary bleed when you hit someone. The customization can be a bit overwhelming, but it does allow you to tailor your character to the way you'd like to play. If you want a fast character, stick with the lighter armors, maybe a one handed weapon, and possibly a shield. Or maybe you are okay with dealing a little less damage, but decreasing the time it takes to prepare a swing, so you change your fighting style. Ultimately you'll find that the game is about trying to strike the perfect balance between speed and power, which comes down to an item's encumbrance stat. Basically, the more of it there is, the more it will slow you down. For example, I once played a crossbow sniper in full plate with a heavy shield, witch allowed me to aptly handle anyone who thought they could circle around and harass the ranged guys, only to find that when I switched to leather armor and a lighter shield I was able to reload twice as fast.

Heavy damage absorption may not do you any good against a light and fast opponent - you may never be able to get a swing charged without getting interrupted by his faster attacks. This guy in cloth took out 3 people in plate and mail.

In addition to being able to customize way too much about your weapons and armor, particularly when you get into the purely cosmetic stuff on helms or breastplates, there are perks to think about. Again, this will be something that is familiar to Call of Duty players. Perks come in several categories, and you're able to unlock two for each, so it'll be up to you to decide if you want to have better shield breaking ability or the option to push your opponent back as a Man At Arms, if you'd rather your arrows and bolts didn't drop so much as they travel or if you'd like to be able to zoom in on your targets, or if you'd opt for the ability to see the health status of your enemies over having bandages that heal you to full, as well as revives that do the same for downed teammates (those last two fall under the Surgeon section, and that's what I do, because you can also select faster bandages elsewhere, allowing your survive longer since they are unlimited, and also knowing who to pick off at low health, since you automatically bleed out when at low health).

You may be wondering just how it is you go about unlocking all of these different weapons, options, perks, and so forth. Well, that's the rub. You see, you have to buy these things with in game coins. You'll gain coins anytime you also game experience, though sometimes you might need to be a certain level to unlock certain perks, such as officer buffs, no matter how many coins you have. The good stuff is quite expensive, as you might expect, such as the best plate armor, which was 100k when I bought it (guns are currently the same). At a handful of coins for a knockdown, 200 for actually finishing off an enemy (an execute, which locks you into an animation for 5 seconds, making you very vulnerable), 300 for reviving a teammate that's been knocked down, and bonuses for other actions, including being on the winning team, healing another player, longshots, headshots, kill streaks, and instakills, it can take quite a bit of time to get the coins you'll need, especially since you'll also need to buy the new blade, fighting style, weapon material or crank, bolt type, and so forth for each weapon you unlock. This is where the game tries to tempt you into purchasing coins with real world dollars (or your currency equivalent), in a near pay-to-win moment.

Still, you have to be able to use the expensive weapon well if you want to beat me on the field of battle!

War of the Roses is certainly an interesting game, but it does depend entirely on who you are playing with. The game certainly encourages squad gameplay, since squad members can spawn on the squad leader, and the squad leader can issue two different buffs, such as one that increase the current health, or another that acts as a small heal over time, that scale based on the number of squadmates in close proximity, and there is an objective tagging system, and bonus experience and coins for both the person issuing the order and the one following it out. Taking advantage of things like that, when combined with someone riding a horse to sneak behind enemy lines, and a group of friends all using a third party voice communication software, well, let's just say it's fun to catch an entire team off guard, and then slaughter them with some extremely well place axe slices as they attempt to reclaim the point. That's how I played it - for 58 hours. The lowest I've seen it on sale for was at the $5 mark or so, unless you picked up a four pack for $15. There are certainly fun times to be had, though sometimes the best strategy seems to be swing wildly while in a group of enemies and watch them injure each other more than they hurt you, rather than the precision based mechanics the game claims to require. If you're interested, I highly suggest the demo, which allows full access to the game types, but does limit you to the default 4 classes, so no horses, crossbows, or handgonnes for you. Still, that will give you an opportunity to see how War of the Roses is a good game - 7 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 7/10

Suggested Price: $5

*****

For more War of the Roses, check out this collection of various screenshots otherwise unused in this review. Click any one for a full sized image.