E.T. Armies is a sci-fi themed military First Person Shooter by a small Iranian studio, made in Unreal Engine 4.
Generally, the game plays like a typical modern shooter; you have regenerating health and can survive a reasonable but not overwhelming amount of gunfire, can carry 2 swappable weapons plus a backup pistol, can throw grenades, enemies generally take 4 to 6 bullets of automatic weapons fire to kill depending on weapon, etc. There’s no inventory management; your ammo is restored to full at ammo boxes spaced periodically throughout the levels, although if you’re using enemy weapons you need to pick up dropped weapons to refill ammo instead.
The Unreal Engine 4 graphics are very nice and up to modern standards, the game has actual production values behind it and the graphics are a lot better than other UDK games on Steam that were made by one or two people. However most of the levels after the first one are somewhat disappointing in terms of art style, as they all take place inside a generic sci-fi factory-type setting.
Level progression is very linear, although the levels themselves can be very large in scale. The game has about 6 levels, with each level taking about 20-30 minutes to finish. Overall, the game can be finished in a little over 2 hours, which combined with the very basic small-scale plot and abrupt ending are probably the biggest weakness of the game.
The story is surprisingly small-scale, and focuses on a single mission during a larger war between the Parsis and the Forsaken. There are a couple hints of a larger plot. Overall the plot feels like the first act in a 3 act storyline
Characters are reasonably animated in cutscenes, although animation appears non-mocapped and seems on par with a mid-2000’s game. However, dialogue isn’t lip-synced well and the dialogue itself is pretty poor. Still, since the plot itself is so basic this doesn’t really hurt that much.
Weapon variety is pretty basic. There are 3 assault rifles, a high-caliber pistol, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle. Guns have a decent amount of recoil and your aim jumps when firing, so you don’t have laser-like accuracy even when Aiming Down Sights; at the same time, you’re still pretty accurate when hip-firing or running-and-gunning, unlike say Call of Duty. Hip fire is accurate enough for normal combat, though you do need to aim to be accurate enough to get headshots.
Enemy variety is also basic; you have a standard soldier, an elite soldier with a better rifle and more health, a close-range shotgunner, and a sniper. There are also wall turrets, 2 different types of flying drone, and an enemy aircraft that can only be killed with mounted turrets or special laser-targeter binoculars that take time to recharge. Enemy durability is on par with games like Killzone or the F.E.A.R. series, with enemies dying after 6 shots from the Parsis rifle, 4 shots from the Forsaken rifle, or 3 shots from the heavy assault rifle or pistol. Headshots from any weapon are an instant kill.
Generally, the enemy A.I. and animations are also very basic. Enemies often stand or crouch in one spot while firing, they do slowly strafe left or right when shot at, and do make some usage of cover. The enemy animations are functional, though they do have a certain stiffness to them. There are a couple nice touches though, such as enemies stumbling over when shot.
I’ve heard there were some issues with rebinding keys, invert mouse, etc, but all of that seems to have been addressed and the game now has all the standard options you’d expect in a professional studio release.
