E3 2014 - Armored Warfare Hands On

Armored Warfare sees you taking part in large scale conflicts using a variety of tank classes to capture objectives and defeat the opposing teams.

In my hands on time with the game, I was part of a 4 man team in which we had to take control of an oil refinery, sounds simple enough I thought. Turns out it was not as simple as I had first thought, In fact there was quite a level of challenge that I was not expecting.

In the mission we played I selected the Artillery tank, allowing me to pick of targets from a distance and it was fun to do. There was a downside to this choice though, I was left defenceless against anyone who came close to attacking me. Thankfully the other members of the team, made up of some of the dev team, were able to keep the opposing team busy enough that I was able to pick them off.

Of course I am making it sound like it was simple, in fact it was quite a challenge. There were some objectives such as destroying some fuel tankers that I could assist with, but as Artillery support I could not move up to capture the objective all I could do was provide support. And boy, did I provide. As the battle raged on I was able to add support to the team by providing updates to where tanks were, thanks to my helpful satellite view that I had access to for my artillery. In fact once we had destroyed the opposing team and captured the objective we would have moved onto the next phase of the mission, had it been an option. 

As you complete team objectives you will move onto the next phase of the mission, which gives you a chance to repair damage done to your tank and refill ammo. You may have notice that I said team objectives, yep that's right, each member of the team has their own list of personal objectives that they can complete while fighting the bigger fight. One of mine was to destroy 5 tanks without taking any damage, sounds simple enough, of course it may have been if the tanks were stationary all the time. In fact most of the time I had to lead my shot to where I thought the tanks were going to be, which sometimes worked and other times did not. Some tanks, mainly the Recon were just to nimble for this to matter though. 

There are multiple tank types that are available to players, the Artillery that I used, the main battle tank which is able to deal out a lot of damage and even recon tanks which while not typically powerful are able to zip around the battlefield helping to identify the opposing team.

And these tanks are amazing to see in action. Actually the entire game looks amazing and it should as its being built on CryEngine one of the best engines currently out there. The level of detail that was around was impressive and the fact that the world is destructible means you will never experience the same map twice.

Being built by Obsidian Entertainment, the company that brought you Fallout New Vegas, Knights of the Old Republic 2 and the recent and epic South Park The Stick of Truth game, means that these guys know how to make a great RPG and adding tanks to the mix is just even more awesome. Check it out over at the official site.