Guns of Icarus Alliance is a weird mashup of steampunk, FPS and multiplayer tactics game. Unique in its kind, the game focuses on flawless coordination and teamwork.
The game started from a Kickstarter created some years after the release of the original game: Flight of Icarus (formerly known as Guns of Icarus), which was a single-player game.
The review will have a storyline, gameplay, visuals and personal thoughts section. Without further ado:
Table of Contents
Storyline
The game doesn’t have any storyline in itself, however, its single-player counterpart does.
Generally, the point in both games is to defend your airship against enemies.
Gameplay
As mentioned, the purpose is to defend your airship. However, that is easier said than done.
First things first, the game has 3 classes. Every ship has 4 players on it, and at least 1 player from every class.
The classes are the pilot, the gunner, and the engineer.
Although everyone can do anything the other classes do (in cases of emergencies), being of a specific class gives you a further specialization in that regard.
Let’s start with the basics though.
Generally, an airship has its hull, its balloon, an engine (or more) and various guns (of differing power). Different ships have different shapes and different strengths and weaknesses.
There are several ships available:
- Galleon: the Galleon is the most resilient ship, but also the slowest one. It’s the go-to ship if you want to tank.
- Squid: the Squid is the fastest ship in the game. It’s also the least tanky one and does not have any weapon slots for Heavy Weapons.
- Goldfish: the Goldfish has a main gun on its front, and two secondary guns on the left and right sides. It relies on its moderate speed and high maneuverability.
- Junker: the Junker has 5 small weapon mountings. It’s kinda slow but easy to maneuver.
- Pyramidion: the Pyramidion has two guns on the top deck and two on the low deck. With 2 gunners, it deals tremendous damage and is very adaptable.
- Spire: the Spie isn’t very fast unless it’s steering. It dishes out high DPS in general.
- Mobula: the Mobula has 5 weapons on the front, but none on the sides nor the back. It isn’t very easy to defend major damage consistently.
After the Alliance add-on was released, 4 new factions with exclusive ships were released (among other things).
The new faction exclusive ships are:
- Magnate: A ship belonging to the Mercantile Guild faction, this decorated ship is slow-moving, but has three guns on each side; two light gun mountings and one heavy, allowing for the Magnate to have high DPS.
- Corsair: A ship belonging to the Anglean Republic, the Corsair is the largest ship in the game. This ship is heavily armored and slightly faster than a Galleon and has lots of guns of every kind on every side thus allowing the Corsair to exhibit high damage within limited intervals due to its large amount of weapons.
- Shrike: Specific to the Order of Chaladon, the Shrike is the second fastest ship in the game after the Squid. However, like the Squid, it’s pretty weak. This ship has two heavy and light gun mounts on the left and right sides of the ship, making the Shrike preferable for “hit-and-run” tactics.
- Crusader: Belonging to the Fjord Baronies, the Crusader is large and heavily armed, with two heavy guns on the front and two light guns on either side, allowing for a wide frontal attack range. It has good vertical speed, but low health and armor.
The following two ships were added to Alliance after its launch:
- Stormbreaker: A patchwork airship specific to the Arashi League, this aircraft has extremely fast acceleration and decent speed, as well as fast turning. Its firepower is concentrated on the left side, with one heavy gun and three light guns lined along this side of the ship. It is nimble but has low health and armor.
- Judgement: Belonging to the Yesha Empire, the Judgement is versatile and has high armor, but low speed and HP. Its firepower is concentrated towards the front, with two heavy guns and three light guns.
Now, after seeing the all the ships let’s move to the classes:
The Pilot
The pilot’s first task is to choose a ship that fits him best, and then load it with the guns he deems best for his style.
There are 2 different types of guns; light and heavy. As the names imply, light weapons dish out slow but consistent DPS, whereas the heave ones do lots of damage slowly.
A ship usually has many slots for guns; some can only take light weapons, others can only take heavy, and some can take either. There are many different combinations here, and the pilot must have a good gunner, but generally, he chooses based on his needs.
For example, a pilot that likes hit-and-run strategies will probably prefer more light weapons to utilize this playstyle.
As with every class, the pilot must also choose his equipment. A pilot’s equipment boosts movement, steering, or even ramming force. It’s all up to his playstyle.
The pilot can also take an engineering tool and some special gunning ammunition, but we’ll get to these with their respective classes.
The Gunner
The gunner is the ship’s force. His task is to successfully use the weapons given to him in any given ship to their best.
The gunner is arguably the hardest class. Firstly, he doesn’t even choose the weapons he’ll be using (nor the ship for that matter…)
But the hardest thing about a gunner is learning every weapon’s use and other trivial things like recoil and ammo in order to use them effectively.
And to boot, the gunner must have a deep understanding of airships in general, as he has to know where to go in his ship when he runs out of ammo, plus where to hit the opponent for maximum damage (some ships have weaker hulls, others have weaker sides, etc).
The gunner must definitely learn to control the battlefield, plus, he can be used as an emergency engineer.
The gunner can also have a piloting tool, but it’s almost never used.
Their special tools are ammunition. You can take ammunition that increases your AoE damage or increase DPS.
Generally, as you will have some preset ammunition builds that you can choose for up to 4. As you level, you can unlock another 1 that can contain the pilot’s recommended layout if you want.
The Engineer
The engineer is nowhere near as complicated as the gunner but is usually the unsung hero of the ship despite not being in the spotlight (a support if you will).
His job is to repair any damage done to the ship, and depending on his tools, buff various aspects of the ship and/or guns.
Another important job is to extinguish fires from the ship.
As for other tools, he has the basic piloting and gunning tools, mostly making use of the gunning ones (especially at the start of the battle, when no damage is done).
The engineer also must have some knowledge of every ship, so he can maneuver easier in every scenario.
The classes can all communicate with each other through pings, and communication is key.
The game, unfortunately, doesn’t have any kind of competitive mode, although that makes for a fun casual experience.
It does have the faction war though, where you choose a faction and fight to gain points for them in order to conquer territories in a map.
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Visuals
The visuals are very good, expectable since it’s been built on the Unity engine.
The graphics on the lowest settings are able to run on most PCs, even some toasters as well.
You can also customize your character through various cosmetics.
Personal Thoughts
The game is very decent, and honestly, if you can spare the money along with 3 of your friends, you can have lots of fun, and without it turning competitive or toxic.
You can even take the game in a sale, and believe me, it’s definitely a money’s worth since it’s so cheap.
Final Verdict
Storyline: –
Gameplay: 7.5
Visuals: 6.8
General Rating: 7.2
That’s it for my review. If you have anything to add or any requests, just leave a comment down below.
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