Lay waste to everything with a machine of your own creation
You can’t fault the ancient Greeks. They had a cracking plan when it came to building a giant, hollow wooden horse in order to enter the city of Troy. Now if they were to include several flame throwers, a brace of cannons, some catapulting exploding mines and gave it the ability to fly back out over the walls of the city, then history may have been somewhat more appealing to high school students
Thankfully, the Greeks missed out on that particular trick, but Spiderling Studios hasn’t with its newest title, Besiege.
Besiege is a physics-based, build and destroy game with a spattering of puzzle solving and heaps of ingenuity and engineering skills. The concept of the game is simple enough: all you’re required to do is use the many components you have available to construct a medieval machine of some description to complete a mission. However, the devil is in the detail here, and although your construction may look wonderful in its design phase, when it comes to actually being deployed for the situation at hand, you begin to realise that it’ll never manage to get the job done.
The missions are based on a many-islanded planet; you simply pick the first island, which is then broken into sections, and begin at the first level. Each level will usually have you destroying a certain percentage of a town, castle or monument, or it may have you wiping out a certain number of opposing guards, sheep or the general population. There are also missions that will have you moving objects from one location to a trickier one elsewhere or to simply get from point A to point B without dying.
The trick is being able to construct an incredible machine that will get the job done as effectively and as efficiently as possible. This takes some skill, and while you begin with a simple design, you’ll soon be required to utilise more and more of the components at hand in order to achieve the goal of completing the mission.
You start with a single block, to which you can add more blocks, pistons, hinges, springs, wings, motors, wheels, armaments and an array of weaponry too. Building your machine is easy thanks to the glorious 3D modelling used throughout the game. You can rotate, turn, raise and lower the machine to add parts above, below and to the sides. In addition you can tweak each individual component to your own needs and specifications. For example, wheels can be keybound and locked, so you can turn much like the caterpillar treads on a tank, and the speed of a wheel’s revolution can be altered too. There’s more, though, as springs can be pushed beyond their original ability to store mechanical energy, and minute alterations to pistons and powered cogs can yield extraordinary results.
Graphically, Besiege is splendid. The 3D landscape and objects are wonderfully presented and display the physics element of the game to glorious effect. However, with this being still in its alpha stages, there are moments of dodgy camera work, and you do get caught in the occasional glitch from time to time. You can limit some of the graphical detail, though, such as the blood splatter from mowing into an army with a rotating saw or reducing the shadows.
Although an alpha build, Besiege is pure fun. The machines you build can be as ridiculous as you wish; no one cares as long as they get the job done. And working out the engineering complexities of a catapult is something every student needs to experience.
For a mere £4.99, Besiege is one game that may change your mind about Greenlight and alpha builds. It’s enormous fun, and we can’t wait for more updates. David Hayward
Immense fun, with more content to come.