Gamers of a certain age – those who remember going to the local game store on a Friday with a gaggle of friends, grabbing a bag of popcorn and chips and dip, and renting the latest release for a weekend long multiplayer tournament – will immediately feel a sense of nostalgia when they load up KEO.
When I found out last week that KEO was a thing and that it was opening up to early access on Steam, I had to check it out. As soon as my little dune buggy with hood-mounted machine gun and side-loaded laser hit my first ramp, coasted through the air, and unloaded bullets into my opponent, I knew there could be some real good gaming moments to be had here.
KEO is essentially an arena battler where two teams face off. Rather than taking the reins of human characters, players control vehicles that are equipped with a basic attack and four skills (other weapons or boosts). If you aren’t as familiar with Twisted Metal (and if you aren’t, then dig up your old PlayStation and find a copy immediately), then think of it as Rocket League Rumble matches, but replace any semblance of soccer with pure PvP combat.
Let’s start by talking game modes
Anyone who’s even remotely familiar with me knows that I am a huge proponent of games that offer up a ton of game modes to choose from. So when I see that KEO really has only two modes, I’m less than stoked. However, since this is an indie development team whose game is still only in early access, I can let it slide – for now.
What we have available to us is Dominion, or Conquest, where players compete over three-point capture zones for a limited set of time. The map was designed well. I enjoyed the layout overall because it offered players several routes to take to reach each of the points. The capture zones themselves need to have a more obvious circle or indicator of some sort to key the players into whether or not they are standing in the circle correctly, but otherwise it worked.
The other game mode is a Deathmatch. Players have a set 5-minute time limit to blow each other up, after which time the team with the most kills wins. Ties are allowed (boo!). The map felt like the appropriate size, but I could see it feeling a bit small for larger teams. The respawn time was only 5 or 10 seconds, which also felt nice; there are few things more annoying that dying and just having to wait around to play again.
Unfortunately, the small population of the game currently resulted in all of my matches being 1v1s, which isn’t super satisfying. At least in terms of a car battler like this, I really wanted to see a bunch of cars flying past each other, unloading their cooldowns, and causing overall mayhem. I was playing a little later than usual, so I was slightly off peak. Most matches popped after around 3 minutes, so I wasn’t too upset. That’s a typical wait time in any Guild Wars 2 PvP match, after all. After 11 p.m., the queues increased to around 7 minutes. That’s really pushing my limit, so I tended not to play much after a couple of those queues. It’d be nice if we could at least load into the junkyard (sandbox area) even just solo so that we can drive around and be playing.
The Dominion games weren’t matching very quickly, so I mostly played Deathmatch. Neither of these is my favorite PvP mode. They all too often end up being so lopsided that its just a grind to finish them out. I tend to prefer modes that end organically when one team has achieved a point victory or something so that it doesn’t just feel like you are waiting on the inevitable.
There is a tutorial, but it’s relegated to a small button in the corner and I didn’t even notice it at first. In many other games like Valorant and Rocket League, it’s included in the main game mode carousel. I think I’d prefer that. Either way, the tutorial itself was very serviceable. It did a good job of helping me understand how the attacks and skills in the game function.
How players start could use a bit of work
The moment you load into the game, an announcement tells you that you’ve got enough scrap (in-game earned currency) to purchase your first car. This sounds fine and dandy. The amount of scrap you begin with is enough to purchase three of the six available cars.
The vehicles have some info about their strengths and weaknesses. It’d be nice if that info were in a grid or some kind of colored bars (I’m thinking Mario Kart stats) so that players can compare/contrast the differences at a glance rather than clicking open and closed between them and comparing numbers.
One thing I really loved is that the vehicles are set up like classes. There is a utility car, a defensive/attacking car, and a pure offensive car. If I wanted to be more supportive with defensive skills, I could home in on that vehicle. But I, of course, chose the pure offensive car.
The downside, I realized in hindsight, is that there’s no takesy-backsy. Once you commit to a car, you are stuck with it until you’ve earned enough to unlock one of the others. And there are no test drives either. The number of scraps you earn (to purchase the other vehicles) is atrociously small too. If it costs 20000 scrap to buy a single vehicle, and a win in a 1v1 match awards around 300 scrap, then it’s going to take about 67 matches to earn my second vehicle. What scorches the most about this is that the vehicles are basically classes and each has it own stats.
I’m sure there are MMOs and games out there where you have to purchase other classes one at a time, but those aren’t the MMOs I’m playing! Now after playing and realizing I really don’t like my car, it appears I’m SOL unless I want to grind out a ton of matches.
If anything, the three starter-tier cars should be free to swap between at anytime. As a new player, I had no idea what I was doing. I picked the one that was an attacker and bought it. Now, I’m regretting that choice there’s no real recourse. At the bare minimum, though, if the developers were to draw a line in the sand on this for some odd reason, players should be able to sell back their one vehicle so they can swap to another and play it.
The cars control and drive smooth
Actually taking your car out into an arena and driving around feels really good. Cars move like you want them to, and the targeting works pretty well too. The cars basically auto-lock onto a target that is within your field of vision, but you can rotate the camera pretty freely and change targets with the D-pad.
The game offers both controller and keyboard support. I played with my controller, and while it worked well, I kind of wish I had a couple more fingers. Basically, the default controls puts your acceleration on the RT button (LT for reverse) which is typical, but firing your guns is on the RB and LB. You skill swap with A, B, X, and Y. Perhaps this is all fairly typical for controller shooter setups, but having to let off the gas to fire didn’t work well for me. I rearranged the buttons and switched from swapping skills on selection to putting them on a rotating button, which worked better.
Regardless, in both cases, I often found myself looking at and driving directly into a wall while my enemy was running around behind me. I didn’t want to give my opponents the time or let off the gun trigger so that I could spin my camera, so instead I just remained that way. It was awkward, and I haven’t decided what the correct way to do it is yet. Maybe playing it with a keyboard and mouse and treating it more like an FPS rather than a driving game would’ve been better. I might try that next.
Cosmetics and swappable skills are limited
KEO’s cosmetics are currently very limited. Also they require players to purchase them with Krebs (which are basically gems or other purchasable currency). They weren’t cheap either! As an early access game (and with as few cosmetics as their currently are) I’d expect them to be redeemable with in-game currency. I can completely understand the team wanting to earn some money for the game they’ve put together, but at its current stage I’d rather work on getting players in here.
Again, early access so I get it, but I’d like to see more original looking or even off the wall crazy cosmetics. One of the awesome things about Twisted Metal was how nuts the cars looked. Most of the current skins here are still pretty basic and look like slight variations on dune buggys or mars rovers.
The last bit to note is the weapon skills. While I enjoyed my laser cannon, it’d be fun to swap it with an additional, slower but stronger machine gun. Alternatively, maybe we can get different types of rockets. Regardless, there aren’t really many different loadouts to choose from yet, so what you’re base car includes is likely all your going to be using for the foreseeable future – which, again, is at least 67 matches.
The only real thing holding the game back is a lack of players. If we could get a nice chunk of new players in there so that queues pop and players get matched up with bigger teams for 3v3s and 5v5s, then we’d have a real fun game here. So, if you’re starving for some road raging car battles, check it out on Steam!
Every other week, Massively OP’s Sam Kash delivers Fight or Kite, our trip through the state of PvP across the MMORPG industry. Whether he’s sitting in a queue or rolling with the zerg, Sam’s all about the adrenaline rush of a good battle. Because when you boil it down, the whole reason we PvP (other than to pwn noobs) is to have fun fighting a new and unpredictable enemy!
