Chilled Chaos: "Think of this game as Tanks meets Worms... except for some reasoning hitting people in this game seems SOOO much more satisfying".
Fight Alongside your Friends! (Or blow them up... we won't judge!)
— Quote from the game's Steam page
ShellShock Live is an Artillery Game in which your goal is to blast the opposing tanks with your own, using a wide variety of weapons of varying plausibility, ranging from simple shots and air strikes to beehives, magnets, bouncy balls, and much, much more. There are also some RPG elements mixed in, such as levels, upgrades, health and armor, and critical hits.
The game has a primary multiplayer focus, although the Steam version has a single player mission-based campaign.
The original free-to-play version was released on Kongregate on December 15, 2010 and can be played here here
. Its sequel, ShellShock Live 2, was published on November 16th, 2012 and is playable here. A rebuilt version of the game then entered Steam Early Access on March 11, 2015, and is still being actively worked on as of the time of writing. It was also ported to Xbox One on March 14, 2019, and PlayStation 4 on September 13, 2019. A version 1.0 of the Steam version is forthcoming.
ShellShock Live contains examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: And HOW. With over 200 weapons and counting, this is inevitable.
- Allegedly Free Game: Played straight in the first two games; you could buy premium content that gave you an advantage in combat. Averted with the Steam and console versions, as you have to pay for the game outright, but also because there is no premium content; you have to earn your way to the best gear and weapons.
- Always Accurate Attack: Dead Weight/Riser and the Bounder line home in on an opponent after a certain point after being firednote , and Earthquake simply hits every opponent at the same time.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Some weapons can penetrate the shield that randomly appears, such as Earthquake, Shockwave, and the blade-based weapons.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Shank weapon. Sure, it deals a whopping 80 damagenote , but it requires you to literally be within inches of your opponent, leaving you wide open to, say, Frogs.
- Averted with its final upgrade, Sword, which deals the same damage, but has a far more comfortable range.
- Bouncesplode. A giant, exploding bouncy ball that will more than likely end up back on your side.
- And speaking of bouncy balls, well, the Bouncy Ball. Unless you can do high level trigonometry and/or calculus in seconds, this weapon may as well be completely random. And it hurts.
- The Shank weapon. Sure, it deals a whopping 80 damagenote , but it requires you to literally be within inches of your opponent, leaving you wide open to, say, Frogs.
- BFG: Many, many of the weapons, notably the BFG-9000 itself. True to its inspiration, it hurts.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Upgrades and crates allow you to gain armor up to 2/5 of your HP (which varies depending on the match), and it takes the damage before your health.
- Boring, but Practical:
- Upgrading your Chassis and Treads. Sure, Gun allows for more and stronger Critical Hits, and Luck can give you better weapons from crates, but Chassis gives you up to full armor at the start of the game, and Treads allows you to climb steeper hills (all the way up to nearly vertical ones), which is far more important, especially in the lower levels.
- Earthquake. Sure, its 10 damage note is pitiful, and it is the least flashy weapon after the basic Shot, but it not only hits every opponent and can never miss, but it flattens out the terrain, which can screw up enemy aim, help you with yours, or get you and/or your friends out of a deep pit.
- The basic Shot could also count. Like Earthquake, it only deals 10 damage and is the least flashy weapon in the game, but is great for helping new players learn the arcs and curves of most weapons without too much danger to themselves or their teammates.
- Cast from Hit Points: The Imploder and Ultimate Imploder. Both take half your tank's remaining HP when fired, and detonate directly at your tank. The payoff for what is basically a suicide move? A blast whose size and damage outclass even the Meganuke.
- Cat Apult: One of the more outlandish weapons that can be fired in this game.
- Chainsaw Good: The Buzz Saw line, which travels across the terrain after hitting the ground, ripping through any tank it hits.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The One Weapon mod, which limits your loadout to, well, one weapon. Can be subverted with crates, supply drops, or simply not firing, as extra weapons you don't use carry over to the next round.
- Critical Hit: You have a chance to deal one that multiplies your damage by 1.5x, and putting points into your Gun can increase both the chance of one occurring and the damage multiplier (up to double the damage from a normal hit).
- Death from Above: Several of the weapons launch a flare-type projectile that calls down an air strike of various projectiles, from simple explosives, to carpet rains, to...cactus and bouncy balls.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The Sniper and Arrow weapons are really hard to hit, but deal an absurd amount of damage if they do (anywhere from 70 up to around 300), often a One-Hit Kill in matches with lower health settings.
- Disc-One Nuke: The weapons you get from crates can sometimes be ones you haven't unlocked yet. You could be a Level 1 and get, say, a BFG-9000. Bonus points if it's actually a Nuke. ...Or a MegaNuke.
- Evolving Weapon: Your weapons gain experience as you use them, and can eventually level up to a stronger (or just functionally different) version of that weapon.
- The Juggernaut: Is a game mode, in which one player is designated as such, and has about 10x the normal amount of health, with each player having about 1/10 of normal. The catch? The Juggernaut has no allies.
- Luck-Based Mission:
- The weapons you get at the start of a round are randomized, as are the ones you get from crates and supply drops.
- A weaponized form exists in the Jackpot linenote , which deals a pseudo-random amount of damage, depending on when it connects.
- The Spaz line. When it's fired, it starts spazzing out in mid-air, and can deal anywhere from a paltry 2 damage to a respectable 76, with an appropriately sized divot.
- The Travelers weapon releases several little projectiles that deal damage every few frames it's inside a tank. If luck is on your side, you can rip apart a tank in seconds. If it isn't, then they'll fly away and only deal a small amount of damage.
- Clover, which can either completely whiff and deal a measly 5 damage...or...
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of the randomly dropped items you can get gives you a shield that nullifies all damage for one turn.
- Marathon Level: Rebound matchesnote can take a long time, especially if wind is turned on, or if your host is feeling really sadisitc, the One Weapon mod. The trade off? Exp multipliers as high as 4.5x.
- Money Mauling: The Fat Stacks weapon involves your tank shooting dollar bills. It even makes a delicious "kaching" sound when the greenbacks hit the ground.
- Nuke 'em: The Nuke, which has a huge radius and deals 80 damage to anything it hits. It even comes with a mushroom cloud! The drawback? You don't get it until Level 80. And then there's the MegaNuke, which does the same thing, but has an even bigger radius and deals 100 damage.
- And then Level 100 brings you the Imploder and its evolved form, the Ultimate Imploder. Both take half your HP and detonate right on your tank, but the blast radius far exceeds anything else in the game, and they both deal 200 base damage.
- Powerful, but Inaccurate:
- The Fireworks set of weapons. Easily one of the most awesome-looking weapons in the game, and can deal a ton of damage, but has a wide spread and if it lands too close to a hill, some of the shots will disappear.
- Moons. If all of them hit, you can kiss your armor goodbye, but if they're being shot across the map or high in the air, you can kiss most of them goodbye.
- Quad Damage: 2x Damage buffs will periodically appear in the sky, and hitting one with your weapon will double the damage for that weapon.
- Recursive Ammo: Many of the weapons have shots that split off after being fired, or that spawn after the initial shot makes impact.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The entire game, natch. Though the explosions can vary from simple divots to nuclear assaults.
- Shout-Out:
- The Portal Gun/ASHPD and the Mad Birds line are the more prominent examples. Oh, and the BFG series.
- The ShockShell is a Koopa Shell in all but name.
- The (Dual) Needler is based on the same weapon from Halo.
- The EE Gun is a long-gone reference to Everybody Edits. It's a weapon that shoots a smiley, which is used as a Digital Avatar in Everybody Edits.
- Taking You with Me: If your tank's HP hits 0, you explode and release three little projectiles. They do 20 damage apiece, so if your opponent decided to finish you off with a point-blank weapon or a Shank, and has less than 60 HP...Oh, and they can crit.
- Tank Goodness: Duh.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: Black holes occasionally appear on the map, with event horizons of varying sizes. Projectiles that enter the event horizon will be curved off course, while anything that actually goes into the black hole is absorbed.
- You Will Not Evade Me:
- One of the items you can get is an EMP which stops a tank from moving for a couple turns.
- Putting enough points in Luck will give you a grappling hook that will let you pull this off on crates.
- The teleport item/crate, while random, can result in this. It can also result in the inverse.
- Zipperiffic: The Zipper weapon, which zips back and forth, dealing damage with each pass. And it comes in Double and even Quad varieties!
