Awesomenauts

It's hardly a new release at this point, but has anybody else gotten into Awesomenauts?
It's got MOBA sensibilities (minions, turrets, branching paths, bases, gaining currency/levels, buying/upgrading powers, etc) done through tight 2D platforming.
While it may not have the depth of DOTA2 or even LOL, what it lacks in that depth it makes up for in accessibility. It's fairly easy to learn the ropes and start experimenting, and each of the playable characters is unique enough to offer a wide variety of play experiences. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't gotten more attention on this forum, as I'm sure it would appeal to many of you. When it's on sale you can get it for 3 bucks on Steam. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't.

Anybody play?

Feel free to give it a shot. Because you`ll be starting at a low rank, you likely won`t be playing with pros yet so you should have a chance to learn the ropes without being steamrolled.
Lone Star is a decent character choice for a first-timer. His bull charge is good both defensively (to push your opponents away from you) or to push against turrets. His dynamite can do a lot of concentrated damage and can be used from a distance if you give them the bounce power-up. Even his main projectile is extremely useful if you give it the "missile" power up.

Really, I can't believe nobody here is playing it!

earthfell_sl said:

you can get it in PSN and play it on your PS3 I think, if you have one. Controls on pc suck, I imagine it would be a lot more enjoyable with a controller (and it does seem designed to be played that way)

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DO NOT play it on console.
Don't get me wrong, I got really into it on PS3 well before it was even available on PC, but the console versions got 1 patch and they won't get any more. Console versions are missing a big chunk of the current character roster, plus there are some game-breaking bugs that make it virtually unplayable (there's a "teleport-jump" that can be cheaply exploited, you can cross into the enemy "safe zone" with certain characters, some of the weapons become invisible when used a certain way, etc).

As for control issues, I use the XBox 360 controller on the PC. It works fine and is very comfortable, but from what I hear it's still inferior to mouse and keyboard. It makes sense, since only with the mouse and keyboard can you aim in any direction while standing still, and certain attacks like Coco's spark ball and Raelynn's snipe can be used much more accurately, but having been raised on consoles I'm still more comfortable with a controller.

Camerous_sl said:

@Tanoomba got a question for you... who is that quote from?

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From Hodj.

Cantatus_sl said:

They just announced a Kickstarter for their first expansion:Awesomenauts Starstorm. It includes:

Spectator Mode
3 New characters (Brawler, Tank, and Assassin)
Twin-stick Controller Support
Global Chat
New Music

They also have stretch goals for additional characters, music, levels, and Steam Workshop integration. $15 gets you the expansion on Steam, plus a key to the base game, the soundtrack, and desktop wallpapers.

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It kind of sucks that new characters won't be available to those who don't buy the expansion, but I guess that's the nature of the beast. At least everyone will get twin-stick support. I don't know why it wasn't in there from the beginning. It always drove me crazy that I needed a mouse to aim while standing still when there's a perfectly good second analog stick on my controller being completely ignored. Glad they finally got around to it. I'm also glad they're not going to divide the player base into "haves" and "have-nots".

Thanks for the heads up!

So a fairly recent update made a few interesting changes I thought were worth mentioning. There were some minor tweaks like changing the generic colored dots on the mini-map to character portraits, but the main improvement IMO was the access to the "Replay" feature. Now, by default, your matches are recorded and you can view the replay any time. It includes features such as skipping to any part of the match, keeping the focus on any character (so you can watch how others play the game), and even zoom out so you can see the whole map and all characters at the same time. It also tracks all the typed comments made, so an unexpected benefit I've noticed is that people generally tend to behave better overall. There are still rage-quitters, but that's not a problem that's easily solved. Not sure if anybody here still plays the game, but I'm still enjoying it so I thought I'd throw that out there.

Used? I didn't realize they even made physical copies!

Too bad the game isn't cross-platform compatible. I'm still playing on PC, albeit not as regularly as I used to.