INTRO:
There are games which try to sell themselves with the promise of quick gratification, but little of everything else. Plain Sight is one such game.
Unfortunately, designs which make a terrible first impression – and which remained to this day since its debut due to neglect from its developers – and eventually repetitive gameplay cut its entertainment value short. It is so short, that at this time of writing, its community is metaphorically dead.
This is a shame, because Plain Sight’s gameplay is solidly designed enough that it could have been the foundation of a game with a great following.
(NO CLEAR) PREMISE:
Plain Sight has no actual story. There may be some to be had from the set-up of nimble, gravity-defying robots who like killing each other with swords. However, trying to make narrative sense of it is an act of futility.
POOR FIRST IMPRESSION:
For a priced product, Plain Sight initially seems like a prototype which has been rushed to market, and then abandoned afterwards.
The various issues which give the game a poor first impression are as follows.
DRM & LEGALESE:
Plain Sight was developed in Europe during the waning days of the form of DRM that is the serial key. Unfortunately, Plain Sight would be one of the last few yet to wean off this tiresome form of DRM.
On the other hand, the Steam version of the game appears to already have the serial key entered as input when the player starts the game. However, this is the only convenience which the Steam version would provide.
LOG-IN SYSTEM:
Every time the player plays the game with an Internet connection active and with a firewall rule making an exception for this game, he/she has to “log in”.
Apparently, the game attempts to make a connection to a “master server” of sorts. This is likely the game creating a local dedicated server on the player’s own computer.
If so, this is probably a hold-over from the early days of Plain Sight, when it was a prototype and it had yet to be distributed over a platform like Steam.
LIMITED AUDIO OPTIONS:
When the player checks out the options for the sounds for the game, he/she might be irked by the very few choices available.
If the player wants to change the volume of the music and sound effects of the game, he/she will need to use any tools which his/her OS provides, such as Volume Mixer for Windows 7.
TUTORIAL:
The bad first impression which the game makes extends to what passes as its tutorial.
The lessons which the tutorial provides are about the basics of the gameplay. They would have been adequate, if not for silly mistakes which hurt the user-friendliness of the tutorial. An example is shown in the following screenshot.
Such mishaps give the impression that the tutorial has been implemented as an afterthought. Furthermore, there are other tricks which the tutorial does not mention, such as the ability to have the player character land onto the nearest platform regardless of the camera position.
GIST OF GAMEPLAY:
The player takes control of a very eager robot, which happens to be built for fast and energetic combat. It also happens to be incredibly fragile, because it can be defeated with just one hit. It is either that, or the robot is armed with a very powerful sword.
Anyway, the robot has to take on other robots, all of whom are seemingly fighting each other just for the heck of it. This is all just as well, because they can respawn endlessly.
Therefore, to “win”, the player must have his/her robot kill other robots, and then blow itself up to conserve the points which it has racked up.
This is easier said than done of course. The player must find targets and avoid being targeted as well, which is not easy, considering that the game takes its name seriously (more elaboration on this later).
Furthermore, the player must time attacks well, in addition to dodging or repelling attacks. This is made more difficult by the setback that the player character becomes larger as it scores more kills.
DASHES:
Every robot can plod around on its two large ungainly feet, but this is at best just begging for certain demise.
However, any robot can (somehow) make a dashing move which covers a considerable distance, even if they are in mid-air. To dash even further, the player can have the robot “charge” its dash before unleashing it.
Dashes are also simultaneously the robots’ mode of attack. Any other robot caught in the way of a robot’s dash is immediately slain. However, the robot’s dash is also cut short, which is not always desirable.
LOCK-ONS:
There is a system in the game which is intended to help the player score kills more easily. It assists the player in targeting a specific enemy in order to direct the dash of his/her robot at this target, regardless of the orientation of the camera.
The game makes use of colour-coded crosshairs to indicate that an enemy robot has been locked onto. Orange crosshairs means that the current dash speed of the player’s robot is not enough to reach the quarry, whereas red crosshairs mean a strong likelihood of a successful strike (if the target is relatively still).
The game displays the cross-hairs on-screen according to the proximity of enemy robots, regardless of whether they are obscured or not. This is convenient.
The game also offers the convenience of disengaging target locks via the tap of a button. This is useful if the player wants to spend a charged dash for getting away instead of attacking.
However, there does not seem to be any tool for locking onto enemies while already having a charged dash. This can seem to be a design gap, but it has to be mentioned here that this tool would have severely affected gameplay.
After all, readying a charged dash to be unleashed immediately upon locking onto an enemy would be quite aggravating to the victim. It would also make an associated system – which would be described shortly – quite useless.
WARNINGS:
Incidentally, the lock-on system is tied to another gameplay mechanism: the warning system. Whenever another robot locks onto the player’s robot, the player is given a warning of the other robot’s intentions.
However, the player must purchase the upgrade which enables the warning system first. After the player has made this decision, investing further points into this upgrade enhances the visual indicator which is used for this warning, eventually even telling the player where the hostile enemy generally is.
(There will be more elaboration on upgrades later.)
JUMPS:
Plodding around is not a good way to stay alive. Dashes cannot be so easily cancelled after they have been unleashed. The player also does not have minute control over the directional veering of the dash.
Therefore, the most reliable way of getting to one place from another while simultaneously dodging enemy attacks is to jump: specifically, multiple-jump.
Although every robot starts with a single jump, this is not enough. The player can attempt to air-strafe in mid-jump, but this will only work if the enemy robot is performing a dash attack at maximum range.
Rather, dodging is possible through the additional “jumps” which a robot can make after having already leapt off a platform. These additional jumps can be made in any other direction and at any time during a jump animation. This makes them exceptionally convenient at dodging attacks, more so than dashes.
However, multiple jumps must be purchased as upgrades. Considering that the other upgrades have value of their own, purchasing multiple jumps comes with considerable opportunity cost.
REPELS:
Dodging is not the only way to prevent being hit by an enemy’s dash attack.
There are two other ways: one is readily available but is difficult to time, the other is easier to use but is more limited in terms of availability.
The first way is to simply dash at an enemy which is dashing at the player’s robot. Regardless of either robot’s dash charge, both of them clash and subsequently bounce off each other. Both are also temporarily stunned, making either vulnerable to other robots.
The other way is to bring up a shield. Robots do not come with shields by default; they have to be purchased as upgrades. However, since bringing up a shield uses a different control input, they are more reliable at repelling attacks. Moreover, the player can transition from bringing up a shield to dashing very easily.
However, shields do not last forever. They drain quickly, and must be recharged afterwards. Furthermore, it loses charge with each repelled attack.
GROWING BIGGER:
After a robot scores a kill, it becomes bigger, supposedly burgeoning with the “energy” which it has stolen from its compatriots.
The game mentions that being bigger makes a robot more powerful, but it does not mention the catch. A bigger robot does have much larger arcs to its strikes and its dashes appear to have increased in distance, albeit in proportion to its bigger size.
However, it also has bigger hit-boxes (obviously) and thus is a lot easier to hit. This setback particularly becomes apparent when the player realizes that a piece of cover which obscured small robots does not help in hiding a bigger robot from the attention of its murderous compatriots.
DETONATION & KILL QUOTA:
Part and parcel of growing bigger is going out with a bang. After a robot has collected enough energy (the concept of “enough energy” will be described shortly), it can self-destruct, releasing its energy and scoring points.
Interestingly, there is a system in place to prevent players from simply detonating after making just one kill upon respawning.
Initially, any robot can detonate after just one kill. Afterwards, to enable detonation, it must achieve a quota of energy. This quota increases as the robot achieves more detonations without getting killed by its compatriots.
Consequently, this system increases the risk which a skilful player faces as he/she performs consistently well for any longer. Eventually, his/her robot would be gigantic as it approaches its quota, making it the target of just about any opposing robot. However, getting slain decreases the quota.
Yet, if a cunning player is thinking about exploiting, e.g. deliberately losing to fatten up other robots before killing their robots to steal their energy and immediately detonating to bank the points, the player’s quota is reset to the amount of energy which the player has stolen.
Even so, a risk-happy player can push the quota by getting more energy than needed for detonation. After all, a bigger robot blows up more spectacularly.
CAMERA:
The game makes use of a third-person camera which is placed far behind the player’s robot. The robot is placed close to the centre of the screen, which means that the player has a very good view of the robot’s surroundings. This is just as well, because being aware of what is happening around the robot is part and parcel of performing well in matches.
Interestingly, the camera tries to pull itself back to maintain the proportion of the robot’s apparent on-screen size as it accumulates energy. However, once it has reached rather risky levels of energy, the camera zoom stops. The player’s robot begins to take up more and more of the screen, making controlling it more unwieldy. The other robots also become increasingly smaller on-screen, making them harder to spot.
One could argue that this is an issue of user-friendliness. Yet, it is also a fitting balancing design which prevents skilful players from simply wiping out the opposition but without actually crimping his/her abilities.
THE PROBLEM WITH PERKS:
Perks are special abilities which players choose to have before joining/starting any match. Most of these are very useful – if the player knows what they do.
Firstly, the problem with perks has to be mentioned: they lack in-game documentation. They are not mentioned in the tutorial too.
The player will have to look for descriptions of these perks elsewhere, outside the game proper.
These minor shortfalls give the impression that perks have been added into the game as little more than an after-thought.
At least the perks make the gameplay more sophisticated and more fun than it would have been without perks.
THE BASICS OF PERKS:
Anyway, perks are ostensibly the player’s main way of making his/her robot seem different from the rest. He/She can pick up to three perks in any combination. During a match, the player can trigger any of them when their cool-down timers have ticked down; this is depicted through their icons becoming more opaque (which is not exactly a high-contrast visual indicator).
Activating perks grants the player’s robots their short-lived benefits, but the durations in which they are active tend to be shorter than their cool-down times. Therefore, the player has to time these activations wisely: knowing when to do so is a mark of difference between a skilled player and one who is not.
SHARED COOL-DOWN TIMES:
Interestingly, the perks which the player picks share a clock of sorts.
To elaborate, when a player activates a perk, it also sets the cool-down timers for the other perks further back. The extent of how far they are set back is determined by the cool-down times of the perks which have been activated.
If the player has activated perks with the longest cool-down times in the game, such as Flame Sword, the player can expect the other perks to be set far back.
However, the perks with shorter cool-downs are not affected by much; they still tick down from their stipulated cool-down time.
In another scenario, the player may activate a perk with a short cool-down time. It will not set perks with long cool-down times too far back; the player may even be able to activate these perks shortly afterwards.
POSSIBLY IMBALANCED PERK:
Unfortunately, the more interesting nuances of the perk system are overshadowed by possible balance issues among the perks. Among these, the Flame Swords stand out.
The Flame Sword would be the staple of most players, because it contributes directly to their goal of killing opposing robots. When activated, any dash which the robot executes while in that state is counted as fully charged.
This allows the robot to “bounce” from target to target quickly, assuming that the player is skilled enough to make full use of the few seconds for which the Flame Sword is active. Understandably, the Flame Sword would be the favourite of most players who prefer fast-paced gameplay – which is what Plain Sight is about.
Target Decoy is another perk with possible balance issues. This is because it circumvents the gameplay need – and risks – of building up energy. When the player targets another robot with this perk, that robot gets a silly get-up, making it more conspicuous. More importantly, whoever takes this robot out will immediately meet its own energy quota.
Next, there is Perk Void. It acts as a hard-counter to all perks; it nullifies the benefits of activated perks and blocks their use in its field of effect. This is the least imaginative perk; it also goes against the spirit of perk usage.
OTHER PERKS:
The other perks are meant for players who prefer other play-styles despite Plain Sight’s emphasis on fast-paced combat.
The Shield perk creates a purple cube around the player’s robot. To make good use of it, the player’s robot must stay in the shield. This is not exactly desirable; any robot can move through shield, and it tints the screen with unsightly purple.
However, any robot attempting to attack the robot which placed the shield and is within it is immediately repelled. The only exception is a robot with the Flame Sword perk activated; in this case, the shield is dropped immediately, but the player with the Flame Sword also loses the buff.
Stealth, as its name suggests, makes a robot far less conspicuous. It does not grant complete invisibility, however – that would have been too much of a benefit and goes against the literal name of the game.
Instead, it lowers the profile of a robot: it is rendered smaller, its trail of light is removed (more on this later) and any illumination visual effects which it has (such as its glowing eye) are dulled. It also stymies any visual effects which are associated with the movement of robots (more on these later).
However, the perk will not prevent other robots from locking onto the player’s robot. It is not an invincibility perk after all.
The Chain Detonation perk alters the mechanism of self-destruction. Instead of just the player’s robot exploding, the other robots which are caught in the explosion will detonate too; they do not get credit for killing other robots in this manner. That goes to the player instead.
The Big Bang is another perk which utilizes the same mechanism, except that it has the simpler effect of making the robot’s detonation bigger.
The Vacuum Bomb makes use of the mechanism of gravity (more on this later). Practically speaking, it acts as another source of gravity, in addition to those used for static edifices in the maps. However, it is also strong enough to drag other robots into itself even if they have traction on surfaces. In free-for-alls, it can result in an amusing bedlam.
BREAK LOCK:
Perhaps the most balanced yet useful perk is Break Lock. However, it must be used together with the warning system upgrade.
If the player gets the warning that another robot has locked onto his/her robot, he/she can choose to break that lock. It can even break multiple locks.
UPGRADES:
Every robot which actively participates in combat will accrue points to spend on upgrades; robots which have been performing better than the rest gets more to help them maintain their lead. The latter design decision may seem a bit unfair, but it does prevent stalemates and produce more decisive victories.
The caveat here is that the robots only get to upgrade after they die, either due to being killed or self-destruction.
Many tools of convenience cannot be used until the player purchases the “upgrades” to enable them. For example, the useful warning system, which has to be purchased to be enabled, could have been more useful if it was enabled by default.
This is perhaps the least convenient design of the upgrade system.
Subsequent upgrades to the same thing are more expensive, which encourages the player to consider going for cheaper upgrades first if only to get a short-term performance increase.
Besides, there is the promise of the opportunity to purchase a “Mega Perk” of sorts when the player purchases all of the upgrades for certain groups of options.
These Mega Perks are not like the aforementioned Perks; this might be an issue of documentation which the developers overlooked. Anyway, the Mega Perks augment some of the actions which robots can perform by default. For example, the Mega Perk purchased after purchasing all defensive upgrades grants the robot the ability to use shields to survive even detonations.
GRAVITY:
One of the most nuanced gameplay elements of Plain Sight is its use of gravity. Where most other games apply gravity as a virtual planar source of attractive force, Plain Sight concentrates them to points. Therefore, gravity acts in a radial manner in Plain Sight, similar to how stellar objects orbit each other.
As an elaborative example, the player can have a robot orbiting indefinitely around a structure which is suspended in space by mere air-strafing.
Cunning players can use gravity to hurl their robots around a piece of cover to avoid dashes, or hurl them over and behind an enemy for a fast flanking attack.
STARS:
For whatever reason, the developers have implemented an alternative system to accumulating energy for detonations (and points for upgrades). Oddly enough, this system only comes into play in multiplayer, i.e. when human players are participating in the match.
Stars appear in the maps at seemingly random locations and they are just as obvious-looking as the robots. The robots can pick them up to work towards achieving their energy quota, in lieu of spending time and effort to hunt each other down.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
Initially, Plain Sight may seem to have little to no effort invested in its graphical designs.
This can be seen in the lack of textures on models. The models seen in the game also look like they had been cobbled together with AutoDesk’s software (e.g. AutoCAD). The robots contribute the most to this impression; they appear to be little developed beyond animated 3D skeletal frameworks. There is not much in the way of shadows either.
On the other hand, the simple gameplay does not necessitate the inclusion of these visual effects.
The visual effects which are seen in the game are intended for gameplay purposes. The most prominent of these are the trails of light which every robot leaves behind. These help the player track a target.
(The game could have gone further by adding more details to these trails so that the player knows which particular named opponent he/she is tracking.)
Next, any object in the map which is not a robot lights up when a robot touches it, e.g. walks on it. The colour of the illumination matches that of the robot, so this practically gives its position away, especially if the object is large.
After that, there is the colour change in a robot when it grows in size, at least in free-for-alls. It changes from blue to green, and then to yellow and finally red. These colours depict how close a robot is to achieving enough energy for detonation, which in turn make for dastardly fun gameplay in free-for-all matches.
Robots which have been killed by sword-strikes release a lot of particles. It is not clear whether these are snowflakes or smoke, but it should be apparent that they are mainly there for eye candy. They do appear to obscure the player’s view though.
There are not many options for graphics. However, among the few, there is one notable option. At this time of writing, the game had been updated to support widescreen monitors. This would have been unremarkable, if not for the convenience of these options being placed behind a toggle.
Considering that most other games would just lump the resolution options together under a clumsy drop-down list or cycle-through menu, this toggle design in Plain Sight is pleasantly refreshing.
SOUND DESIGNS:
Plain Sight makes an odd first impression by using jazz for its menu screens. There is no other music to listen to. The music is hardly unpleasant of course, and its playful tunes do mesh with the personalities of the robots.
Speaking of the robots’ personalities, most of these would be expressed through their voice-overs. Despite the premise of the game, they appear to be quite gleeful at doing what they do, e.g. whooping with joy whenever they make multiple jumps and cackling when they eliminate each other.
There is not much of anything legible to listen to, however. They do utter some artificially voiced lines, but these tend to be too low to be heard over the din of combat and they are too laden with electronic blurts to be immediately recognizable.
Other than these, there are the sounds of swords clashing against metal and the booms of explosions, as well as the whooshes of robots dashing about. All these noises are not particularly remarkable, but they do serve gameplay purposes well.
MATCH TYPES:
There are five match types in Plain Sight. All of them will use the gameplay elements which have been described earlier, but with secondary goals added, at least for those which are not free-for-all matches.
Speaking of which, free-for-all matches are little more than proof-of-concept for Plain Sight’s gameplay. Nevertheless, It is a great starting point for new players.
Team Deathmatch is little different, though players on the same team are expected to help each other flank enemies and distract them so that they can be taken down piece-meal.
Then, there is Capture-the-Flag. Two teams are expected to compete against each other by stealing each other’s flag and returning it to their own base. This may seem to go against the main gameplay of Plain Sight.
However, but being able to stymie the other team from getting flags and returning them by making use of the gameplay elements of Plain Sight does make this match type – which is not new and has been done before many times – seem a bit more refreshing.
After that, there is Plain Sight’s variant of “king of the hill”. One specific object in the map is periodically selected as the “hill”; the robots must claim ownership of it by detonating near or on this object.
Compared to the other match types, this one is particularly dependent on map design. Unsurprisingly, most of the (comparatively few) maps for this match type do not feature long paths and are instead made up of isolated objects.
This is where the gameplay experience may become a bit vertigo-inducing for some players. Where the other maps do have features which make for easy points of reference, those in this match type mode do not.
Finally, there is Botzilla. This is practically a variant of the “one versus all” match. One of the robots is a gigantic robot with silly headwear and permanently enabled Flame Sword perk. Its role is to simply massacre the other robots, hoarding as much energy as possible. It cannot be killed in one hit either.
As for the other robots, they must make use of their advantages, namely their small sizes and lack of any light trail to give their positions away. Most of the maps for the Botzilla match type have objects which act as obstacles for the Botzilla, but cover for the other robots.
The other robots are not supposed to run and hide; instead, they must make opportunistic strikes against the Botzilla in order to literally cut it down to size. Once it has reached its minimum size, the next strike kills it and the player which is controlling the Botzilla forfeits the energy which it has accrued.
Therefore, the Botzilla player has to consider when to continue killing the other robots or when to detonate in order to convert the accrued energy into points.
MAP VARIETY:
Although it has been said that most of the maps in the game appear to be composed of objects made with AutoCAD, their designs generally mesh well with the gameplay elements.
For example, there is the map “Unreeled Tournament” (itself a reference to a certain multiplayer-centric shooter). It has long and wide winding paths which twist around. It may seem like a straight-forward map, but the twists, wide paths and their gravity scripts allow wily players to do a quick dodge and come right around to strike their enemies in the back if they confront each other at these places.
BOTS:
Bots (or computer-controlled opponents) are likely to be the majority of the enemies which the player has to compete with – especially at this time of writing. (There will be more elaboration on this later.)
Fortunately, they can put up quite a challenge, especially on Hard difficulty. However, anything less makes them quite easy to anticipate.
The bots are generally capable of taking advantage of the main gameplay elements of Plain Sight; they know how to accrue energy and detonate and appear to purchase some upgrades (especially multiple jumps).
However, bots have many limitations which make them less-than-ideal opponents. Firstly, they are incapable of using perks, which severely curtail their competitiveness. Secondly, they do not appear to make use of upgrades such as shields. Finally, they do not appear to have scripts which make them aware of the secondary goals in match types other than free-for-alls and team deathmatch.
NO MORE ATTENTION FROM DEVELOPERS AND FANS (IF ANY):
Plain Sight’s gameplay would have been splendid when this game still had some hype going for it – but that was back in 2011 and 2012. Even back then, major updates came within a span of a year each.
Consequently, there does not seem to be any long-term value to this game. There is no community to form ad-hoc hobby clubs with. The developers also no longer listen. (They are purportedly working on a follow-up game, but the last bit of news on it was in October 2013.)
Perhaps the most damning proof that the game has been neglected by its developers is that even at this time of writing, there is still no bot-scripting for the Capture The Flag match type. (This match type remains disabled in the single-player Practice mode.)
Even the attention of its fans is short-lived. Any community of players appears to only crop up whenever the game is sold on a discount. Even so, the game already has a very low profile.
CONCLUSION:
Plain Sight has fun and fast gameplay which rewards skill and familiarity. However, it seems to be little more than the results of the efforts of developers who are skilled but otherwise have little long-term attention for their game. As of now, the game would have no more value than sating the curiosity of players who are intrigued by the premise of suicidal ninja robots.