ShootMania Storm open beta now live

TrackMania developer Nadeo's multiplayer FPS ShootMania Storm was supposed to launch in January, but publisher Ubisoft delayed it for a bit of extra polish. To get more feedback, and more publicity, it also announced an open beta test, which is now live. To star fragging, download the 1.24GB client here at Shacknews.

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TrackMania developer Nadeo's multiplayer FPS ShootMania Storm was supposed to launch in January, but publisher Ubisoft delayed it for a bit of extra polish. To get more feedback, and more publicity, it also announced an open beta test, which went live yesterday. To star fragging, download the 1.24GB client here at Shacknews.

ShootMania Storm is something of a return to the FPS days of yore, with fast movement, deadly guns, and none of that weapon unlocking nonsense. And, as part of Nadeo's ManiaPlanet system, it has an easy-to-use level editor. The community has already made over 25,000 maps.

The open beta offers most of ShootMania's modes, though certain unspecified features will only be available for people who've pre-ordered.

ShootMania Storm is now due to launch for PC on April 10. It'll cost $19.99 but is only $15.99 to pre-order, or cheaper if you buy more copies.

From The Chatty
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    February 13, 2013 6:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, ShootMania Storm open beta now live.

    TrackMania developer Nadeo's multiplayer FPS ShootMania Storm was supposed to launch in January, but publisher Ubisoft delayed it for a bit of extra polish. To get more feedback, and more publicity, it also announced an open beta test, which is now live. To star fragging, download the 1.24GB client here at Shacknews.

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      February 13, 2013 10:00 AM

      Why does nobody make a good duel game? Or at least include a decent duel mode?

      All this king of the hill, capture the flag type crap bores the hell out of me. You end up with a load of random people who don't know what they're doing and in no way act as a team. One-on-one duels are far more fun and can't be spoiled by other players in the same way team games are.

      The last attempt at a duel game was when Id took the ten year old Quake 3, balanced the life out of it, stuck it in a browser for added inconvenience and never released a dedicated server. Tragically, Doom 4 is currently the only hope for a decent duel game, but after Doom 3, Rage and Quake Live I won't be holding my breath for anything decent.

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        February 13, 2013 10:02 AM

        Have you been ignoring Chivalry or something?

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          February 13, 2013 2:51 PM

          I think you misunderstand the meaning of duel:

          1.a prearranged combat between two persons, fought with deadly weapons according to an accepted code of procedure

          Duels don't have to be fought with swords, they can be conducted with pistols or, as in the case of Quake, with rocket launchers and lighting guns.

          What I want isn't a sword game, I want a FPS with a good one-on-one mode. Sadly, nobody seems interested in making such a game :(

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            February 13, 2013 3:38 PM

            Your initial post said nothing about how you wanted only shooting duels. Chivalry is a modern first person game that has a good duel mode. You were bitching about the lack of games with good duel modes.

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              February 13, 2013 3:39 PM

              Also, what the fuck? Where did I even remotely indicate that duels could only be fought with swords?

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            February 13, 2013 9:35 PM

            1vs1 is a dead concept in FPSs until a professional league of some sort gets big again.

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      February 13, 2013 12:34 PM

      It seems very Unreal Tournament. It'll be interesting to see how much interest remains in this kind of game and whether Nadeo can capitalize on it.

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      February 13, 2013 9:31 PM

      Has anyone (besides me) tried this?
      I played this a few months ago, and supposedly there have be some improvements (more terrain and better matchmaking). It was fun, but didn't grab me as much as Trackmania did. I'll have to try it out again this weekend.

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        February 13, 2013 10:09 PM

        It's crap. It's like it was designed in bizzaro land or something, nothing about it makes sense..it's just weird and not fun.

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        February 13, 2013 10:19 PM

        When I was at IPL5 they were pushing it hard as their competitive FPS title, and they had stations setup where there was FFA going on constantly.

        I dunno, the competitive format they use for events is sorta weird, with the whole offense/defense thing where it's 3v1.

        I played about three rounds of FFA over the course of 2 or 3 days; the last one I played I won it despite using a shitty mouse and being like 10 years out of practice with that style of PC FPS games. I'm going to assume it was because everyone else was terrible, but the whole thing just felt weird. The thing that stands out to me was that I could never tell if I was hitting someone; that and the rocket type weapon's splash damage was unintuitive to me for some reason.

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        February 13, 2013 10:56 PM

        The 1v1 dueling is interesting, but i don't think it has enough depth. The round-based FFA is abysmal.

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