Self-produced and developed by Odyssey Interactive, we were given a 3v3 action sports game with some anime-like graphics and characters. Omega Strikers, was in an early access beta with limited characters and now the team at Odessey Interactive felt that it was ready to give us the full product. Let’s get to it and see how ready it was…
Gameplay
Omega Strikers is a 3v3 action sports game with an array of different characters each with their own set of abilities. The sport aspect of the game is reminiscent of air hockey, you and your team are fighting with the other team over control of the puck to get it into the other teams goal. Before loading into a game you pick from three roles goalie, forward, and flex. Flex just being whatever is quickest to get into a game which usually ends up being a goalie in my experience. Your job as a goalie is, you guessed it, to protect the goal. Your job as a forward is to attack the puck and try your best to score a goal. During the mayhem you’ll notice health bars above everyone’s heads, if your health bar empties you will become staggered. If you’re staggered and somebody hits you towards the edge of the map or into your own goal you will be eliminated and have to wait to respawn and in that time your team may struggle as they are down a player..
At the beginning of each game everyone picks their player in a draft style. So there won’t be repeat players on the team, so I would advise learning at least three different players mainly to make it easier on you when your “main” is taken from you. But if you don’t have the patience or time to sit down and learn different players that way its not a big deal, most of the players have pretty similar abilities that work in different ways. You have four different attacks and an ability that comes in the form of a dodge or a resiliance boost. Each player comes with their default attack that they use too hit the puck, generally a melee attack with short range. Most come with a long range attack that you will use to attack other players or stop the puck. A movement attack like a teleport to the puck or a player, or maybe a long range jump and slam or a long kick to move you quickly. Most also come with an Area of Effect (AoE) attack as well that can be used to stop and redirect the puck.
I played a bit on PC and a little on the Nintendo Switch so I could feel the difference between the two, I will admit I preferred the gameplay from the handheld console. Playing on PC made screen navigation easier but made the game play feel a lot slower, sluggish almost. While playing on a controller with the Switch gave the same game a little bit of extra life.
Audio and Visuals
Each character has a unique design that falls right in line with most MOBA style games. While the artwork to this game is a little more cartoony it fits in with the style of the game and the character designs. You have characters from squid-girls to a big furry hamster to a lizard soldier. There are subtle differences in the “maps” that you get but most are visually the same.
I played on the Nintendo Switch and on my PC so I could see the difference in gameplay and graphics to see how much it would change. Graphically, the game isn’t very taxing so I didn’t notice a huge upgrade when moving from handheld to PC graphics.
Replayability
In a multiplayer game like this, it really depends on your enjoyment of the game and how far you want to stake your claim. You could play it everyday for a week and never want to play it again, or you could instantly be hooked on it and you could spend any free time trying to climb the ranks in competitive mode. You could take your time learning new combos with new characters or you could just perfect the move set of one character. The replayability possibilities are endless really it just varies on how much you enjoy the game. If top-down games like this are enjoyable to you then give it a shot and I'm sure you'll find your fair share of replayability.
What It Could Have Done Better
In a way, some of the abilities do start to feel repetitive to an extent. It's not a huge complaint from me because it does make sense that they all have similar abilities because without it there might be some balancing issues. But they could have made this adjustment by simply making some characters better goalies instead of forwards and vice versa. This is more of a player complaint than a game complaint but it would be nice if they gave some sort of penalty or restrictions to players who picked a goalie and aren't playing goalie. I played too many games where my goalie was nowhere near the goal and then would spam the "Let's Defend" emote, but again just a personal experience complaint. In the future more game modes would also be nice, maybe a large map version with 4v4 or even 5v5?
Verdict
I have a lot of fun playing top-down MOBA games, especially with friends. This is no exception, I was skeptical at first but right away I picked up on the controls and got right into the fun without any over lengthy tutorials that are unskippable. With the game being free with some in-game purchases, I say its a fun game to play especially if you like MOBA games.
Omega Strikers is available now for multiple consoles! With cross-play and cross-progression integrated! Omega Strikers is available for PC via Steam. The current console available is Nintendo Switch with PlayStation and Xbox Series X|S consoles coming soon! You can also play on the go via mobile on the Apple App Store and Android phones via Google Play.
