Review by: Dave VanDyk

With each new iteration of FutureMark's 3dMark stress-testing product line over the last few years, there's always inevitably been one or two demos lumped in which involve some kind of cool high-tech battle between warring space factions. You'll see gimmicky animated panels and heads up displays, giant robots and mech suits, flashy guns with an incredible amount of special effect detail, ships with damage modeling that results in their hull plating getting ripped apart by weapons fire in a visually appealing and realistic manner, and all sorts of other cool touches.

Of course, then you realize that all of it is just a glorified, heavily-scripted demo for benchmarking purposes, and end up raggedly disappointed that the cool battle you just witnessed will never be experienced as an actual playable game. This is why I'm intrigued by the release of Shattered Horizon, 3DMark's first foray into the actual gaming industry.

The entire game is based around a complete lack of gravity (where the concept of 'up' is non-existent), which means attacks can potentially come from any direction and the use of proper cover is essential. This in turn adds a whole new layer of depth to the generic FPS formula thanks to the ability - nay, requirement to move 360 degrees in space. You'd think this would then lead to a problem of control complexity, but the developers have wrapped everything around a familiar form of movement.

By default when you're moving through space, the WASD key set will handle forward, backwards, and lateral movement, while keys traditionally used for jumping or crouching will move you up or down. The right mouse button can also be held down for free-form rolling maneuvers. Given how my last experience with this sort of thing was with the mind-boggling control scheme offered by Heavy Gear 2's space segments, the simplistic approach for this game is appreciated.