S4 League is a fast paced third person shooter game, with WSAD control and mouse for direction, in room-based environment, with stylized and good-looking graphic. Players login to the Lobby, where they will have access to equip their characters with weapons, costumes, skills, and then they can choose which room, and what type of game, they want to join in. Each room has max players at 12, 6vs6.

S4L has variety of weapons at your disposal. All have their use, depending on the situation, your team members, enemies, the map, and the game rule. Weapons such as Revolver and dual Sub-Machine Guns are great at close range, while Semi Auto Rifle is for medium range. Rail gun, among others long-range type weapons, is the favorite by most snipers. Sword and Counter-Sword and baseball Bat are also very handy in close combat situation. Turrets, Healing Device, or Life Draining Device can also turn the tide of the battle. Each character can bring 3 weapons into a game at a time, hotkeys for weapon switching is 1-3.

Apart from weapons, each character has 1 slot to equip Skill. Skills are very important and knowing how to use them all correctly takes time and skills. Examples of skills are Invisible, which renders the user almost transparent; HP+30 Master, which increase max Health of user by 30 points; Detection, favored by snipers or anyone don't like being ambushed; Anchoring, which allows user to climb up to high places; Flying, you know what it does; and more.

Skills uses SP, which is separated from Health Point. SP regenerates fast while not using skill.

It's important to mention that, all players are equal. Everyone has 100 HP, and 100 SP. The numbers don't increase no matter what level your character is. They, however, can be changed by equipping HP+30 and SP+30 Skills. Some equipments, also increase the numbers very slightly.

There is no armor in S4L. Instead they're called Costumes. That's because they don't provide Defense. They're there for the Appearance, and very small upgrades. (HP+2, for example)

Players start off with only a few weapons at first, but they can buy more by using in-game currency, called PEN, obtained from playing the game, or spend real money for AP. Very nice costumes are for AP users only. Most weapons, however, can be bought with PEN.

After reaching certain levels in the game, you will unlock more cool stuff. Such as new emotion ( /dance, /wave, etc), more Costumes for PEN, and more Character slots.

Since you equip your character with weapons and skill before heading into a room to compete with others, you have no idea how to prepare for them. How to counter their tactics. Thus, preparing your secondary character with different weapon set and skills is a good idea. You will be able to switch to your secondary character during the Half-Time break, in every game.

Now, let's talk about the game mode. For now there are 2 available. Deathmatch, and Touchdown. Both separate players into 6vs6 teams. The goal for DM mode is to kill them, and try not to die often, until a certain team kill count is reached (60 kills, 80 kills). While in TD mode, players rush to pick up a.... not a ball.... some sort of a doll actually. Anyway, you shoot and slash every enemies standing in your way and pick up the doll and reach the enemy platform to touchdown. Players get respawned a few seconds after getting killed in all game modes. Both TD and DM could be flagged with Sword Only rules, so check before you join any game.

The downside? Laggers! Everyone hates them. How so? Because they don't die even after eating all bullets in 3 clips from your 3 guns... And they run around and shoot you and kill you too. You will know one when you see one, or when you fail to kill one.

As stated in my Preference, I don't like games that don't let me change key mappings and other sorts of control. I so many times accidentally hit Q or E keys (hotkeys for team commands such as Thank you, or Let's Attack) while trying to change weapons (key 1-3). Oh, and to switch between total chat and team chat, it's F2 and F3 keys.

Last but not least, S4L has some special Moves players can execute, usually to avoid incoming fire. Apart from all wall jumping, and such, players have found some really cool moves that would throw off enemies in "What the heck was that!" if they never seen these moves before. Check out Youtube for S4 League Wave Dashing, for example.

Reviewed Aug 09

RATING