Aside from a brief class selection screen that lists each loadout, Ace of Spades dumps you into the action without a single tutorial. My unexpected triumph with the drill cannon also brought to mind a smallish issue. When most rounds only last 10 or 20 minutes and rockets and grenades can destroy most fortifications in seconds anyway, there seems little reason to focus on construction in the first place. These days, most people seem to stick with running and gunning, which presents its own problems such as a bugged reticule that doesn’t always appear. But oddly enough, it’s these same heavy hitting abilities that strip Ace of Spades of its former strategic glory, as the frequent detonations remove any real need to build fortifications. Under pressure, I just fired off whatever weapon I had equipped, and was rewarded with the sight of a gigantic drill missile pummeling my opponent to death and leaving a hole big enough to hide in. One of my favorite moments during my time with Ace of Spades was spawning as a miner for the first time, only to turn around and find a Commando behind me but milliseconds away from pumping me full of pixels. Or take the Miner, who attacks bases and players from below and behind with devastating TNT attacks, destroying them before they even know what hit them. Indeed, in Capture the Flag, he seems unforgivably imbalanced. Even the best fortifications present him with little to no challenge, especially when he glides out of the sky and riddles his foes with bullets from above. Take the Rocketeer, who darts about the landscape with an SMG and a jetpack strapped to his back. The four classes of Commando, Marksman, Rocketeer, and Miner all have the power to place preset blocks and dig through them with varying degrees of aptitude, and their respective abilities present enough variation to keep the whole process from sliding into monotony. Mind you, the ghost of a great idea still hovers in the background, and at times it materializes to shock me into admiration of its potential. The gameplay now moves along at a faster pace as a result, yes, but at what cost? It’s a different game now, though, and the Minecraft elements assume a much lesser role than the shooter mechanics. And then the enemy would come, and we’d snipe from behind our blocky barricades and take part in a Team Fortress 2-inspired style of FPS combat that felt refreshingly new. My teammates and I would dig tunnels that’d put ant colonies to shame and we’d erect fortresses with all the zeal of Minnesota schoolchildren building snow castles. Once upon a time (in the days before Jagex took over the project), Ace of Spades catered to both. Ace of Spades is like Minecraft mixed with Team Fortress.Ĭomment: If Minecraft appeals to my inner child’s desire to create, then Ace of Spades caters to a more specifically boyish urge to run through others’ creations and dash them to pieces.
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