Stinger

M.A.G.M.A

Arm, lvl1 Samson's lost twin

Review by Peewee Hugger. Read Storm's version here.

Buildpic: I liked this buildpic because I thought it was cute. The unit is rounded up and has discrete colours. Reminds me of a little animal. I like the angle too [4]. There is no shadow but then it is cloudy so there shouldn't be any either. The background is nice with the hill in the upper right corner and doesn't need any more detail although I personally would like some small rocks or a cactus. [2.5]. About the merging I would like to point out that why does the front window and right track shine when there is no direct sunlight present. Of course this could be explained by saying that the sun shine from the part of the sky not seen or some sort of selflumious coating but don't as I won't buy that. [2]. I don't like the inverted version when you click on it either, it should be like the original TA pictures a little lighter but I won't deduct points for it.

Buildpic: 8.5

Model: The face count of the model is acceptable but there are two useless faces on the underside of the launchers and one in the front which maybe could be seen if the unit crawled up for a steep hill but as it is, it cannot be seen and is useless. They were probably added for the bp render but you don't make renders in game so off with them. The model is seen as a square in game but I like it. The track design is such that it couldn't be done in the real world without elastic tracks but this is only seen in the 3DObuilder and I won't deduct points for this.[3]. The texturing is good and the different parts are seen well enough with good contrast. It blends with other arm units with the camo textures and CD 3D is present [5]. The corpse looks wrecked and nice and the useless faces on the original model are gone but there are some new ones [1].

Model: 9

Script: Standard aiming and no recoil.

Script: Not counted

Balance: The unit is supposed to be a lighter version of the Samson so it seems most logical to compare it with this. It costs 78 energy and 6 metal less and is built around 7 % faster. It has slightly more speed but less acceleration and turnrate. It has 12 armor points less and deals 20 d/s as opposed to Samsons 16 by default. But then Samson deals double damage to any OTA plane and has 50 percent longer range. So I think this unit is underpowered. I suggest either lowering the costs by 25 percent or increasing the speed to get a more harassment type of unit. I think you should raise the d/s by a few points too but leave the damage to planes as it is so that the unit can be a more ground-type Samson to use if you don't expect that much air attacks.

Balance: 6

My score: I like the looks of this unit but as it is now I don't think it ads very much to the game. Plus it uses a name already taken by a TA unit. It will stay in my totala folder until I have tired looking at it.

My score: 5