In progress Arena Shooter 'Factor X 2' was previously mentioned on these forums, as looking very good indeed. Since then, I got talking with Hamish McLeod who was developing it, and we (at Moonpod) will be publishing the game under its new name 'War Angels'.
Anyway
the reason I mention it, is that Hamish has just written his first development diary entry. War Angels is being developed in Blitz 3D, and what impressed us most (in fact it completely bowled us over when we got our hands on a test version) were the amazing weapon effects. You can read Hamish' first diary entry here (scroll down to the third post - first 2 are for our other game which isn't a shooter of any sort). We also have a forum section that Hamish is involved in (and also has an introduction to the game) here:
http://www.moonpod.com/board/viewforum.php?f=18
Mechs have been in the game since as long as I remember, and now I've finally finished them off so they can appear in this map. There's two varieties, the weaker conscript mech which will appear in this mission (pictured), and a stronger Nazi mech with a deadlier selection of weapons which include a chaingun, a flamethrower, a missile launcher and a laser beam. You'll also be able to pilot one at some point in the game which you can see briefly in my last dev diaries video.
These autonomous turrets differ from the norm in that it's usually easier to avoid them than attack them. If you step through their laser detector, or fire at them, they'll retaliate with a burst of highly accurate gunfire. I've been using them to provide some variety to level 2 by breaking it up into small "nazi sections" and "turret sections", one which has you shooting up enemies and the other has you dodging laser beams. There won't be any undestroyable enemies in this game though, so they can be dispatched if you have enough heavy weaponry.
The patrol bots from the first level can now be fitted with gravity generators instead of grenade launchers. These guys will drive up to you and deploy, creating a strong gravitational field around them pulling you in. I came up with this one when one of my friends was running through the first level, and pointed out that you didn't need to fight any of the enemies - you could run past them all to the end without them being able to catch you. With this enemy is place that strategy is going to be alot less effective. I like the idea of enemies who do things to you other than take off your health so expect to see more like this one.
