Powered by Unity, Forced is a One- to four-player co-op arcade adventure with puzzles and tactical elements. You are cast as slaves in the toughest fantasy gladiator school of them all, condemned to fight as a gladiator and eventually win your freedom. You will face deadly trials and huge creatures, but Balfus, your Spirit Mentor will guide you in your quest for recognition.
Forced is one of the best looking Indie Games I have seen to date, the attention to detail in both the gameplay and environments are astonishing. When I first saw Forced at Eurogamer Expo 2013 the game reminded me of Smite, with the gladiator type of approach. However once I got to play the game I’ve fell in love with how simplified it is with both keyboard and controller. While FORCED is a Tactical RPG the way it controls is more like a top down shooter. As both the style of gameplay and your spirit mentor Balfus are deeply engaging often throwing up a variety of puzzles and obstacle to overcome.
But while you might think Singleplayer was fun, just wait until you either play online or 4 player co-op locally on the same pc. This is where BetaDwarf have come up with one of the best gameplay elements which is both useable in Singleplayer and Multiplayer. Of course I’m talking about Balfus your spirit mentor while in Singleplayer you’re the only who can control him, in Multiplayer you can all control Balfus so the idea behind this is to use team work really pushing you to communicate with team mates on how you’re going to be using Balfus spiritual powers to help you out. Of course playing with more than one player also increases the challenges of each trial you face making more of a challenge making you rely on teamwork throughout the course of the trial.
While I played with my friends and good old colleagues across the pond in the USA and Japan obviously my ping will be quite high usually this sits around 120 for Battlefield 3 gameplay which was the same case for Forced. Once you hit 120 ping in Forced you start to notice a slight jitter around the characters movements however it didn’t really bother me. However Ron having a 200 ping was hitting points in the game where it was becoming slightly unplayable.
Speaking with Steffen after our interview he explained there’s a lot of interest behind the game and the team are currently working on ways to keep people coming back something which RockPaperShotgun threw some concern about in their article of impression about Forced. However from what I’ve play thus far and from speaking to the developers this game has a promising future and defiantly has some big replay ability, especially co-operatively. For the game being Steam Early Access this is by far one of the best looking, most stable, fun and addicting game (not WoW addicting though).
Would I recommend this to anyone? Well yes yes I would, this is defiantly a pickup espcially if you have a group of four people for co-op or even if you just want to play by yourself!