Top 10 Games of The Year 2009

Seven – Shattered Horizon

Publisher: Futuremark Games Studio
UK Price: £14.99 (incl. VAT)
US Price: $20.00 (excl. Tax)
Bit-tech.net Score: 7 out of 10

Shattered Horizon proved to be an incredibly polarising game when it was released in early November this year, with nearly all of the bit-tech staff falling into either a Love It or Hate It relationship with Futuremark’s multiplayer shooter. It was a real Marmite game and time hasn’t mellowed our love/hatred of it.

For the most part Shattered Horizon isn’t anything hugely special – just another multiplayer-only FPS in a sea of samey games, none of which can quite rival Team Fortress 2. What sets Shattered Horizon apart from every other release this year though is the setting for the violence; space. It’s astronaut deathmatch at it’s finest, with full on fire-fights breaking out around large asteroids, starbases and the scaffolding of the International Space Station.


What’s so important about the location of the combat though is that it fundamentally changes the action in ways you don’t expect. The zero-gravity environment means that you have to constantly be wary of silent attacks from above or below, while your own forays in the vertical plane are hampered by the fact that there’s never any cover to get behind. If you aren’t hugging a solid surface then you’re an easy target, though you can always counter that by launching mobile platforms through space and hitching a ride on them!

Granted, Shattered Horizon can be a bit of a headache to get to grips with at first and it’s a bit too easy to go spiralling off into space like a snail thrown off a NASA centrifuge, but that’s all part of the fun and it helps the game stand out from the pack. Like we said before; there’s a sea of multiplayer shooters out there and most of them are pretty rubbish. Any game that can bring something new to the table is welcome, especially when it manages to push the envelope technologically too – which FutureMark’s DirectX 10 only engine certainly does.

Shattered Horizon is still getting plenty of support too, with more maps and game modes teased for upcoming DLC packs which should help pad out the meagre selection of maps that’s currently available for the game.