Publisher: THQ
Developer: Illfonic
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.0 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon 64 or better CPU, 2 GB RAM (3 GB for Vista/Win 7), 512 MB GeForce 8800 GT/Radeon 3850 HD or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, 3 GB hard-drive space
Genre: FPS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

In the mid-1990s, a new genre hit the gaming scene with a bang. Soon, burly men with guns blew platformers off their thrones with well-placed rockets and tea-bagged the remains of their cartoon mascots. As new technology allowed for a revolution in graphics, new networking infrastructure created the online deathmatch. The FPS genre arguably hit its peak around the turn of the millennium, powered by lightning-fast online frag-fests exemplified by Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. These are the halcyon days that developer Illfonic tries to recreate in Nexuiz. However, the result is more “A Bigger Bang” than “Beggar’s Banquet.”

When you open the digital box, all the right pieces come tumbling out. Weapons, comprised mostly of shotguns, sniper rifles and launchers of various sorts, favor projectile effects over hit-scanning. Player momentum is fast, and double-jumps and jump pads fling you around with wild abandon. Yet, if you slow down a bit, you can take in the wonderful “neo-Victorian” architecture generated by the cutting-edge CryEngine3.

So far, we have a bullet-point description of an arena shooter. However, Nexuiz has one very noticeable characteristic to set it apart, and depending on your perspective, it’s either a blemish or a beauty mark. Mutators (not to be confused with UT’s mini-mods) are random powerups that can completely change the course of a game. There are the typical ones such as rapid fire, low-gravity and so on. But buried deep in the list of more than 100 mutators are some utterly strange ones, such as jetpack, color-blind, gravity reverse and “uber-melee.”

To the casual player, this might sound like a fun bit of variety, but to the Quake pro, it sounds like madness. Adding such random powerups like this can only turn it into Mario Kart: Hell Edition, right? Not quite, because you can store up to three mutators at a time and selectively activate them. This creates a whole new element of strategy in the fairly mundane FPS. In addition, each server can be configured to allow certain mutators, so players can custom-balance their game to their likings, and trust me, some of these deserve perma-bans.

This is the paragraph I didn’t want to write. While Nexuiz might not have grown up to be the banner-waving competitive FPS that it always dreamed to be, it’s decent in its own right and even brought its own six-pack of ideas with it. But in the multiplayer realm, nobody cares if your mother told you that you could be anything you wanted to be. Online, if few people play your game, even less people play your game. That’s where Nexuis is right now. At any given time, you might be able to find a handful of people online, playing on a single occupied server. Thank heavens there are bots to play with, or I might never have been able to finish this review.

If you’re looking for the successor to Quake 3, look elsewhere. There’s some true effort and passion in Nexuiz, but for a variety of reasons, it didn’t work out. Perhaps, with a few good patches and a Steam sale, it can resurrect, UT3-style. Still, Nexuiz can make for a great LAN party game, especially late into the night when everyone’s three-deep.

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