Gigantic (PC, Xbox One) is currently in open beta phase on the Arc platform, known from games like Neverwinter, along with Xbox One and Windows 10. Our guest author Dennis has taken a trip into the colorful world of Gigantic and has written a few lines about the game and its features.
In Gigantic, you enter a colorful world where gigantic creatures fiercely battle for victory. My hero, a robot armed with thick rocket launchers and a minigun, races through the wilderness of the game to take down some enemies. Just as I capture a point, our Guardian is attacked, and it’s time to defend.
In a flurry, I rush to our spawn point and unleash fire on the enemy minions until the attack on our giant creature is repelled. This was roughly how I experienced the first minutes in Gigantic, and I must say that this game stands out from other genre representatives like Paladins or Overwatch and fascinates with its unique elements.
However, in recent years, several games have been announced that were supposed to revolutionize the market as a mix of shooter and MOBA but have had little success. As a hardcore Overwatch player and MOBA fan, I checked out Gigantic’s open beta for a test and initially needed to find my way around. Because Gigantic does a lot of things differently than other genre representatives, which led to some initial confusion for me.
My experiences in Gigantic are also available as a video that you can watch here.
The First Step Is Hard
Before it starts, the game needs to be downloaded first. There are now several options for that. The distribution platform Arc by Perfect World now offers the game for all Windows users, as previously the hero shooter was only available for Windows 10 and Xbox One owners. If you have played Gigantic before, you can start an account transfer so you don’t have to start all over again. The download is about 6 gigabytes.
Once you’re done, you can get started. Before facing real players, there’s a small tutorial that consists of four sections and guides you through the world. At the beginning, three heroes with different play styles are available to you.
Gigantic shows you how everything works with small animated and voiced cutscenes. Even though everything is well explained, it was personally too much for me at once, so by the end of the training, I still didn’t quite know what was going on.
After the tutorial, I would recommend trying a few games against the AI to refresh your understanding of the game. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the surroundings, you can jump into real player battles.
Something for Everyone
Once you start a new match, you have the option to choose from currently 18 different heroes, each with different skills and roles. There are classic tanks that can take a lot of damage, assassins that attack you from behind and deal huge burst damage, or shooters who are heavy on ammunition.
What I find cool: Every hero can sprint with the Shift key and escape tricky situations. Once you eliminate enemies or capture points, Gigantic rewards you with experience points that you can spend on various upgrades. With each character, you continue to enhance your abilities and can choose between two options. Of course, there is also an ultimate alongside the regular skills, which can completely turn the game around at well-timed moments.
The robot “HK-206” plays like a classic shooter and pulverizes his enemies with a large railgun, a mortar, and rockets. By sprinting, he moves quite quickly and can escape from tricky situations. Besides his normal arsenal, he can transform into a small fortress through the skill “Fortifying” – comparable to the hero “Bastion” from Overwatch.
The intelligent robot has even more to offer. With his ultimate, he unleashes a swarm of rockets that can do damage to enemies when used at the right moment.
Gigantic Test – A Touch of MOBA
The maps and deployment areas consist of different points that you can capture and populate with a small selection of creatures that will then defend the areas. The goal is to obtain power by capturing points and eliminating enemies. Once you’ve collected 100 power, your Guardian attacks the enemy, and for a short time, the opposing Guardian is vulnerable.
Each of these large beasts has up to three lives, so ideally, there would be up to three successful attacks. Here, the game does many things differently than conventional MOBAs. It’s not just about simply beating down enemies, but the captured points and the collected power also influence the course of the game.
Gigantic plays fast and comfortably; however, it leans more towards MOBAs than Overwatch, as you need a bit of patience to eliminate an enemy hero. The focus here is on gathering power to deal damage to the guardians and thus decide the match in your favor. Since the 2.0 update for the open beta, PC players can also play cross-play with Xbox One gamers. Since the game was also designed for consoles, there’s also the option of playing via controller on your PC.
Free2Play, But Right!
Gigantic is currently in the open beta phase and is free to play for everyone. Since it is based on a Free2Play model, there will also be microtransactions here. In the game, there are two different currencies: earned crowns and jewels that can be purchased with real money.
For some items in the shop, you can pay with crowns and jewels. I believe that you cannot buy any advantages in the gameplay with real money. Only boosters that allow you to level up faster and cosmetic items can be purchased with jewels.
There is also the opportunity until July 20 to purchase a so-called founder pack that grants you various bonuses. However, you should first check out some gameplay or at least spend some time in the game to avoid buying the wrong thing and being disappointed.
Beautiful Graphics, But Sometimes Too Much of a Good Thing
First of all, it must be said that the graphics stand out from other representatives with its extreme comic style and simply look fantastic. Sometimes, however, the action can become a bit overloaded due to abilities and chaos, which slightly harms the overview. Some damage values against hit enemies sometimes get lost in all the chaos.
Although an event bar appears that displays important information, it is not as prominent as, for example, in Paladins or Overwatch. When I set the graphics settings to low, oddly all colors disappear for me, and the heroes consist solely of gray and blue tones. However, it must be said that the system requirements are not too high and the game should run on many PCs.
Conclusion Gigantic in Review
Even with some initial difficulties, Gigantic is fun and especially stands out from other genre representatives due to its dynamics, such as capturing different points. Gigantic is a game that gains enjoyment from longer play sessions. You first have to navigate through a bit, but once you get the hang of it, nothing stands in the way of enjoyment.
In addition, the game is Free2Play and with its small download size of only 6 gigabytes invites many players to play together. Perhaps a bit should be adjusted in the effects so they don’t come off as overloaded. If you ever feel like playing something other than Overwatch or Paladins or are looking for something new and refreshing, you can sign up for the open beta phase and dive into the world of Gigantic. By the way, the release version is set to arrive on July 20, 2017.
This text is by guest author Dennis Zühlke.
Also interesting: Gigantic – Huge Update Before Release
