Face of Mankind Preview: One Thing Leads to Another 
Jason Gallienne (Jrgsubzero), OnRPG Journalist

Face of Mankind, this game lives up to its name. Between the political scandals, the shady operations, drug dealing, and wars over resources this game has a real-life feel to it. With danger around every corner will you be able to make your way in this world?

No Carebears Allowed

Let me get this out of the way right now. This is not a game for the weak of heart. Sure, they may have added a nice little zone for new players to frolic in while they get a grasp on the game, but after that it’s watch your back time. You’ll have to fend off gankers and enemies while you try to make your living. There are no safe zones (not counting the cloning facility where you spawn upon death) unless you go deep into your factions base behind high security barriers, but even those can be hacked. Get to know your faction, stick in groups, or prepare to die a lot.

Save at faction base

Heart Of The Matter

Now let’s get to talking about the game. It’s a sci-fi first/third person shooter with RPG elements, or a “Massively Multiplayer Online Action RPG in a single persistent universe” as they call it. There are 8 factions fighting for dominance either by military or the economy. Each faction has its own perks and uniform as well as back-story. Please visit the Faction Page for detailed information on this subject.

The RPG element comes from the crafting, mining, and gear system. Mining is done from terminals found in each of the cities/colonies. All you have to do it boot it up, tell it what you want to mine, and you’re off. You don’t have to attend to it while it does this so you’re free to do other things. Producing weapons/armor/med kits/etc is done almost the same way. Locate the production terminal, buy the production manual, make sure you have the crafting materials stored in that bases storage, and tell it how many you want to make.

In-World RPG Elements

Sounds thrilling right? So let’s chat combat. After you either purchase or craft your own armor and firearms you’re ready to fight. Combat is similar to your normal shooters, if you put your crosshairs over it you’re probably going to hurt it. The recoil can be frustrating for inexperienced players though. In most factions you’ll experience combat by either defending your base or trying to take out others. In the mercenary faction you can take hit man contracts given by other factions.

Politics In A Video Game?

Now for one of the more interesting points of this game, which is that it’s mostly run by the players themselves. The factions are led by players, all the items are made by players, if you go on a killing spree player-run police will come and send you to jail, and those are just a few examples. Killing someone in another faction could have dire consequences not only for you but for your entire faction. The phrase ‘one thing leads to another ‘ really describes the essence of this game when it comes to your actions. You can get marked as a rogue and get stripped of your faction privileges. Also, for each person you kill you get penalty points, get enough points and you’ll become a Most Wanted. Players that belong to the LED can and will arrest you if you become a pest but more often than not the people you’ve killed will take care of you personally.

Most Wanted player

Here’s an example. Let’s say you kill someone. A high ranking person in your faction will usually ask why and if you don’t have a good reason you’ll get a warning. Keep it up and you’ll get fined for some of your credits. Continue and you’ll get expelled from the faction all together. Now, all factions are run differently so punishments depend on the person running said faction. Don’t get me wrong though, nothing is keeping you from being a one-man terror. Just expect a lot of hostility and cops trying to arrest you.

To Pay or Not To Pay

This game has an option to subscribe to the game for $10 a month. Now, before you stand up and rage about this in a skill dependant game let me link you to the perks. Check the forum discussion about this. As you can see, there isn’t much of a advantage, if any, when it comes to combat. The benefits offer more in the ways of convenience than power. Unless you plan on taking control of one the factions in a high-ranking position or crafting all your own items then you won’t need pay a cent.

Game Overview

Dedication And Constant Updates

This game died a while ago and has been brought back by the same company. Since then there has been updates, tweaks, and additions about every week. I am very impressed with how they listen to their players and keep pumping out updates on a regular basis. They seem very determined to make sure the game clicks well this time which is a great thing! Face of Mankind still attracts only a niche audience but the game is showing huge amounts of potential thanks to the dedication of the staff.

Conclusion

This game may not be perfect but it’s worth a try. It’s such a unique experience to be in a world where there isn’t a NPC to be found. If you’re into role-playing  this game might be for you due to its player-driven economy and politics. The game might be confusing to start off in but don’t let that deter you from giving this game a valid play-through.  So my verdict would have to be a 7/10.

Pros:
– Player-driven.
– Unique experience.
– Developers  seem to actually care about the game

Cons:
– Graphics are dated.
– Confusing to learn but new tutorials are being put in place.
– A very niche game.

Monster and Me Review: Thorough Nostalgia
By Markus Nivasalo (Thas), OnRPG journalist

Good ol’ turn-based games. Who doesn’t love them? Don’t deny it, we all spent hours on them back in the day when all we had was a Super Nintendo and a few cartridges. That style and feeling, is something that TQDigital’s Monster and Me tries to bring back.

Character creation

After getting a fix for some patching errors, I finally got into the character creation screen. At this point, I noticed that there certainly isn’t much customization in this game. You can choose from sixteen different characters (eight male ones and eight female ones), that all look different and have a different weapon. After that, you can choose between three colors that affect your armor color, hair color etc. Here, you may also choose your stats. It may sound pretty versatile at first, but when you think about the fact that this is how your character will look forever, it’s pretty sad.

Character Creation

Gameplay

When you’re done with character making, you’ll get sent into the tutorial. I’m being honest now it is confusing. You may end up out of the tutorial without intending to do so. I didn’t get any info from the tutorial but for me at least, it seemed that it’s easier to just learn things by yourself.

The interface is… Well it’s definitely something I’ve never seen before in an MMO. For one, it’s very confusing for beginners. It’s not too beautiful to look at either as when clicking a menu, it brings up the sub-menu that looks just like any other program’s menu when you click “File” in the upper corner. Something that fits into the game better should’ve been designed I think. Sometimes I seem to forget I’m playing an MMO and not Solitaire as the menus are the same. However, when you play it for a while you’ll get used to it. There are also some nice things about the interface, like the map, which is very clear and easy to use. However one annoying thing is, when you’re talking to NPCs it looks like there are spaces between words and it makes it really annoying to read (for example, so far I’ve seen words like “t ut or i al”).

Combat is this game’s good part, as it’s turn-based and focuses a lot on pets. It might be pretty confusing at the start though. I wandered around a while before realizing that I had to click the “Fight” button to start a battle. At first I thought it was pretty stupid but now, I think it’s pretty great actually. Everyone can kill peacefully and not steal each other’s kills which is good. It also means that if you have something important to do, you can step away for a bit without worrying about getting killed.

Monster and Me Battle

The combat is just fast-paced enough for a turn-based game. It’s not slow nor is it too quick. You have 30 seconds to do your moves which include normal attack, special attack etc. On first click you plan your pet’s attack and then your own one. Gaining levels is pretty easy, as you can get to level 10 in a matter of minutes. That however tells that the max level is very high (from some source I’ve heard it’s 999 but I have no secure information about it). After some time though, the combat starts getting old and you’ll find yourself spamming CTRL+S for the quick attack just to get the fight over as quickly as possible.

There isn’t much I can tell you about the quests as I could hardly find any. That aspect of the game also feels very confusing. From what I’ve seen at least, they aren’t your basic “kill x amount of y”, but rather complicated tasks.

The other special feature in this game is the pets, there are basically just as many as there are monsters, since you can catch almost every monster is. It is very hard to catch a monster, however. You do it within your turn in combat, but most of the time it just seems like you’re wasting your turn because the failing percent is quite high. What you’ll get when you fail is the monster laughing at you. Let me tell you, these monsters get a lot of laughs!

You can buy some special pets from the cash shop too (which seems rather pointless however). These pets can equip their own armor and they also have their own skills. I started out with a turtle pet, which I think everyone gets but I’m not sure about that. He’s pretty unique looking really. Can’t say I’ve seen a turtle with a helmet and a lance as a pet ever before.

The controls are your basic click-to-move. It’s basic, but it’s also very easy to use. It feels very smooth too although the moving animations could be better.

Monster and Me Tutorials

Graphics and sound

The graphics in this game are decent for a sprite game. Everything is decently drawn and it’s cool to look at. It’s not anything you’ll stop to stare for ten minutes because it’s so beautiful, but it serves its purpose. The weather effect is very bland as there is only one type, which is rain and it doesn’t look very spectacular.

Most of the areas seem to have their own music, but every song (if you can call them that) is very short and it repeats over and over again. When leveling for a long time in the same place, it can really make your ears bleed. There’s also a decent battle music track but it gets old after a few battles.

The animations aredecent most of the time. There are some okay ones, like the walking animation, but the fighting moves for example seem really bland and definitely aren’t anything special.

Summary

In conclusion, I’d say Monster & Me is a decent MMO with a few new things but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone except turn-based game fans.

Pros:
– Pets
– Combat
– Controls.

Cons:
– Confusing tutorial
– Not much customization
– Horrible looping music
– Animations
– Interface.

Evony Review: I Think I’ve Seen This Game Before
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), OnRPG journalist

Browser games are currently what turns non gamers into mind numbed zombies who will do their best to sneak a few minutes from work just to check on their online characters. Browser games are more or less work safe. They don’t crash your computer, they don’t look like games, and most of all they’re easily closed (haha! I win Mr. Supervisor dude!). The best part about browser game is that they’re system friendly. You don’t really need to upgrade your PC 3 times a year to play these babies.

Formerly called Civony, Evony is a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Web browser game that shines for its strategic features. It’s not really a hard game per se, but the dynamics are so enthralling, you’d think you’re actually playing an application game.

Building in Evony

You’ll start out as a lord of a certain clan, doing various deeds that don’t seem to mix well with the storyline. You’ll be doing trivial stuff, separating you from the storyline. It’s actually crazy at some point, much comparable to Superman helping an old woman cross the road, aware that Lois Lane is falling off a building. Browser games have generic plots regardless of its well-written lore. I’ve had my share of browser gaming goodness, and might I say that most of them tend to dive off the plot 4 minutes into playing it. I guess this is what separates application games from this genre.

A Nice Piece of Work

Evony looks a lot like Age of Empires and Civilization. After looking at what the game’s graphics have to offer, I was astounded at how much these games have evolved throughout the years (wasn’t Kingdom of Loathing just err… MS Paint-based?).

RTS (L) – Real Time Strategy (Literally!!!)

If you’re familiar with games like Farmville, you know what it’s like to wait for something to grow, or in this case build. Some structures in the game takes days to build. Think of it as though you’re really in charge of a virtual world that builds itself in real time. Units are trained the same way as well, making it a bit realistic but dull with waiting. I’m not really that much of a waiter so this part of the game didn’t appeal to me that much; however, the waiting time builds your suspense, hoping you don’t get attacked before your walls are built. It’s a very awesome factor. Fast paced games > slow ones? Guess not. I’m not sure if you’re willing to invest that much time on a browser game, but they sure are good when you’re dead bored at work.

Expanding Lands in Evony

Web Browser Combat At Its Finest

Although the game has certain balance issues like the overpowered archers, combat can still be considered as good in Evony. You can pick from an array of soldiers, dressing them up and gearing them up to further compliment their efficiency in battle. You can also team up with other players or join an alliance to give you the upper hand. There are various ways to insure victory in this game, either by tier whoring or by simply ganging up on multiple targets.

You can also expand your empires scope by conquering or befriending other towns. You will earn rewards as you team up with other areas (NPCs) earning either extra soldier, gold or other necessities. Competing with other players (PVP) is one of the main attractions of today’s MMO games. No one could ever resist beating down other players to boost their online ranks and self worth. Worry not new players! You will be given a 7-day immunity period against enemy attacks (specifically other players) when starting the game. Once you’ve established your base and array of soldiers, you’ll probably be the one to beg for the barrier/immunity to go down LOL. The game has an outstanding community, making it hard for you not to fight. As much as the words MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER is concerned, I’d say that player population is good enough for you to enjoy playing this game for a long time.

Building a Town

Graphics

The graphics are flawless and look a lot different when compared to other browser games. Everything is properly rendered, with a diverse set of buildings that are easy on the eyes. I guess browser games have taken their visuals to the next level. The elements work well together, creating harmony between the elements. Other games have failed miserably when attempting this kind of approach, considering the fact that most of their elements stand out instead of blend in with the other features. With that in mind, this game truly reeks of awesomeness.

You Must go to Barracks for Extra Soldiers ß LOL    

One thing about this game is its funny grammar. I really can’t specify how many grammatical errors I’ve spotted during my game time. God please don’t let this beautiful game end up like Zero Wing “ALLYOURBASEAREBELONGTOUS!”

Micro-transactions for Big Big BIIIG Advantages

Yeah, just as the header suggests, everything that’s acquired with real money can really boost your advantage over players who play for free. It’s a cheap trick being pulled by most of the games that dub themselves free to play. I’ve tried tons of subscription methods for various MMOs from browser games to application ones. Although they aren’t required for you to fully enjoy the game, they do provide an imbalanced advantage over other players. This really destroys the whole point of the words FREE TO PLAY… well, they didn’t say FREE TO ENJOY or FREE TO TIERWHORE so I guess they’re safe.

Imbalanced Advantages

The Verdict

All in all, the game is really fun to play whether you subscribe or not. It’s really newbie friendly so you don’t have to worry about being ganged on when first entering the scene. The visuals are quite impressive especially for a browser game, with well-rendered buildings that blend well in their respective terrain. There are tons of people who are playing the game so it’ll be hard to feel alone even if you want to be. Tier whoring or subscription whoring may be an issue for those who want an equal basis for all players, but heck there’s nothing we can do about that right? The game also features a wide set of linear quests that don’t seem to mix with the storyline. It’s no biggie… At least the game has quests right?

The good:
– Awesome visuals
– Quests
– Micro Transactions
– Big community

The bad:
– Bad grammar
– Connection fails most of the time (even for some DSLs)
– Micro Transactions (tier whoring)
– It stays away from the plot