Yearly Archives: 2010

RuneScape Review – A (browser) Window To The World

RuneScape Review – A (browser) Window To The World
Neil Kewn (Murxidon), OnRPG journalist

 

RuneScape is a 3D browser-based MMORPG from British company Jagex. Released initially in January 2001, the game has received numerous accolades and currently holds a coveted Guinness World Record. April saw the release of RuneScape’s Dungeoneering skill, giving players the ability to team up and take on high-level beasts for even greater rewards.  Almost ten years since its inception, what does the world’s most popular free MMORPG have to offer gamers in a market dominated by vast, client based virtual worlds?

 

Starting out in RuneScape

Starting your travels in RuneScape is your standard MMO affair. Registration is simple and pain free. Pick an in game username (letters, numbers and spaces allowed) along with a password and you’re set. You may provide an e-mail address for password recovery purposes if you are so inclined.

 

RuneScape is programmed in Java, meaning it is multi-platform and cross browser. Simply install the Java Runtime Engine and click “Play” on the game’s homepage, no client or patches to download, although the game will copy several files to your computer, speeding up loading times drastically next time you play the game. Once logged in, you are greeted with a character creation screen. Select your gender, head, hairstyle, clothing, beard, skin tone and hair colour. No choice of race here, everyone in RuneScape is a humble human.

 

Runescape Login

No client to download, no patches to apply

 

Character customisation options are fairly expansive, but most options only decide what your portrait will look like when speaking to non-player characters. It is pretty trivial when you take into account that every player is an indistinguishable polygon construct. Your gear is what defines you from other players.

 

Starting out in RuneScape

Once you are finished deciding what colour your goatee will be, you are greeted with the game’s tutorial. It’s a pleasant enough introduction to mechanics and abilities. Moving is achieved via point and click, which can seem very nostalgic at first (or awkward, depending on your age).  Soon enough, you are plunged into the starting town of Lumbridge, and are free to do as you see fit. Fancy killing that hunchback goblin over there? Go for it. Feeling an urge to milk a cow and bake a cake? Be my guest, I won’t ask why. 

 

Perhaps surprisingly for a browser base game, there is quite a lot of depth in RuneScape, and you are never short of something to do. An in game Advisor is available at any time to provide helpful hints, guides and ideas if you are stuck, along with a “random objective generator” that can give you something to aim towards if you’re lacking motivation.

 

Dissimilar to a lot of other MMORPGs, there is no set “class” to play in RuneScape. You have a choice of 22 different skills to master. From cooking to mining, blacksmithing to herblore, summoning to thieving, there is literally something for everyone. It’s this versatility and freedom that keeps adventuring in RuneScape a fresh experience, at least once you have completed the game’s strangely small number of quests.

 

Runescape Skills

So much to do!

 

Your Combat Level is what other players are interested in though. Levelling skills such as woodcutting, fire starting and fletching will not increase the level presented underneath your player name. Instead, this is based on your overall level of strength, defence, attack, constitution (HP), ranged ability, prayer, summoning and magic.

 

Your Combat Level is how powerful you are, and reminds you to not go around attacking level 52 bears (or indeed, players) when you’re a lowly level 9. Death transports you back to Lumbridge initially, and you lose all but your three most valuable items. Return to the place you perished to reclaim all of your belongings.

 

Another level

Progression in RuneScape boils down to most MMORPGs favourite way of levelling. Indeed, grinding is the name of the game here. Shifting from one skill to another provides a respite every now and again, but you will basically be repeating the same tasks (albeit in a different area) to level up your character. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and there are some fun and quirky mini-games to divulge in, but I would advise not levelling the same skill endlessly. It really sucks a lot of the fun out of the game. 

 

Getting your combat level up is what you will be spending a lot of your time doing, though. The “click enemy, wait a few seconds, loot corpse” rule (which I just made up) is in force here. You can alternate between combat styles, each boosting a particular combat skill, but the premise is basically the same. Range combat swaps the sword and shield for a bow and arrow, with magic opting for the use of Runes. These magical stones can be crafted using a dedicated Rune Crafting skill, and a combination is used in order to cast powerful spells.

 

You get what you don’t pay for

Being the most popular F2P MMORPG in the world, it seems Jagex are doing something right when it comes to giving players something for nothing. The free portion of the game is large and varied, with plenty of things to get done without punching in your credit card details.

 

Still, the real “meat” of the game comes from membership. A monthly subscription fee of around $5 unlocks everything that RuneScapehas to offer. The game world opens up substantially, with a huge amount of terrain to venture through. All of RuneScape’s twenty-two skills become available, and plenty more adventures light up your quest log. The price is great value for money, and fans of the game should be very satisfied with what they receive after parting with their cash.

 

Dungeoneering – Interesting name, interesting skill

The new Dungeoneering skill is certainly a welcome addition to the plethora of abilities already available. Both free and paying players can take a boat from Al-Kharid to the island of Demonheim, group up with others and take on challenging monsters in instanced rooms. Entering a dungeon is a simple process. Dungeoneers are provided with a ring that enables them to teleport to the dungeon and organise parties. Party management is simple, with options to set the difficulty of dungeons and whether or not you wish share experience.

 

Players are barred from taking anything into Demonheim. Instead, armour, weapons and items are provided already. Anything looted inside a dungeon vanishes once the encounter ends, unless the player chooses to “bind” the item for use on the next encounter.

 

Behemoth Runescape

Fighting a Gluttonous behemoth in Demonheim – Losing

 

Bosses don’t just have more health points, though. Some deploy certain tactics that players must take into account if they wish to clear the floor. For example, the Gluttonous Behemoth above can feast on a nearby corpse and regain full health. Other bosses force players to move around the room, or require a certain Combat Style to take down. Teams must coordinate strategies, and effective communication is the key to survival in these dungeons.

 

There are 35 floors in Demonheim, each with an increasingly difficult creature to defeat. Rooms leading to the boss are littered with other enemies that the group can kill, but the door leading to the next area is locked. Players must locate a key in each room in order to progress.

 

Browser based games have system requirements too, you know

As there is a 3D world being crammed down your internet pipeline and rendered in your web browser, the graphical quality of RuneScape can sometimes be an eyesore. The world itself lacks vibrancy, with some areas being completely devoid of any colour except green and brown. Player and NPC animations are stiff, with some actions seemingly consisting of just 3 frames.

 

Runescape Murky

Today’s outlook for generic town number seventeen – Gloomy

 

There are three different graphical settings, ranging from Safe Mode (all settings set to minimum) to High Detail (shadows, dynamic lighting, the works). The latter does look extremely impressive for a browser game, with clear textures and detailed objects, but can cause the game to dip in terms of performance, especially when there are a large number of players in a single area.

 

Walking and running looks particularly awkward, with your character jolting from one spot to another. Whilst small, but frequent, loading screens spoil the flow of the game when travelling. It’s not particularly distracting after playing the game for several hours, but the blocky graphics and limited character animation may put some players off.

 

Player-vs-Player

PvP in RuneScape is available in numerous forms. Special Player V Player worlds are available for the more confident adventurers, where combat can occur almost anywhere. Bounty Hunter worlds are also available, where players fight in the wilderness, and are given targets to ruthlessly strike down. Minigames can also satisfy an urge to contest your might, including Castle Wars (a capture the flag style game), fight pits and duelling.

 

A worthy investment?

RuneScape certainly offers a lot for such a small price of admission. The world is huge, and the plethora of skills is sure to keep you entertained for a substantial number of hours. Despite the expected graphical shortcomings and a community that leaves a lot to be desired, RuneScape is a familiar MMO experience inside your browser, offering leniency and guidance for new MMO players, but extensive depth and replay value for hardened veterans of the genre. It’s definitely not what many would consider a “casual” MMORPG, but it’s perfect for hopping in and out of. Even so, it’s not hard to get lost adventuring in the curious world of Gielinor.

 

Pros:
– A huge number of different skills to master
– Low monthly subscription
– Large world to explore

 

Cons:
– Character animations are pitiful
– Music is irritating
– Life’s a grind, then you die (and teleport to Lumbridge)

Spiral Knights

The Spiral Knights have awoken on an unknown world. Their equipment stores have been raided and their starship, The Skylark, will not recover from the crash. But all is not lost. Taking refuge in a town called Haven they have begun a new mission.

As a Spiral Knight, you must delve deep below the surface of the world into the mechanical labyrinth known as The Clockworks. This colossal complex of turning gears and unnatural machinery is filled with massive slabs of alien worlds and home to a legion of terrible monsters. This great machine is in constant motion and is always changing the worlds it creates. An exciting adventure awaits that will take you to the planet’s very core, where the Spiral Knights will discover the purpose of The Clockworks and who or what created it.

So take up your sword and join your fellow knights in a world that offers new adventures every day!

Why PC Gaming is Nowhere Near Dead

Why PC Gaming is Nowhere Near Dead
By Joshua Temblett (Dontkillmydreams), OnRPG Journalist

 

The PC Gaming Industry continues to grow and grow. In a recent announcement from the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) it was revealed that software revenue was at $13.1 billion for 2009, which is a 3% increase from 2008. So what exactly can this rise in PC gaming software sales be attributed to?

 

I think the important thing is to recognise MMORPGs as one of the biggest genres in the PC Games industry. To put it simply, the MMORPG is something which is oddly exclusive to the PC platform. Game developers can make MMOs for consoles, as it has been proven by games such as Final Fantasy XI, White Knight Chronicles and Monster Hunter (and yes I know that the latter two aren’t MMORPGs per say; however they do have some of the same features).

 

Whilst online RPGs can be created for consoles, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of developers pushing for it, excluding Square Enix. This is interesting because it is generally believed that there are more console gamers out there then PC gamers, so why would game companies not want to create MMORPGs for a console, especially when there is such a large market for them (just look at World of Warcraft and its twelve million subscribers)?

  

PC Gaming Rise WoW

 

In 2006 it was revealed by Paul Sams (then World of Warcraft’s Chief Operating Officer) that the reasons why MMOs could not be brought to consoles were because “There’s no certification process outside of Blizzard’s internal process. When you introduce Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo, you introduce a whole new certification process.”[1] Blizzard has also been reported as telling Microsoft that “There are so many games like we make at Blizzard that we don’t take to consoles because they don’t support the input device, and you end up with crappy ports. That’s why RTS games never do well on consoles.”[2] If this logic is true then MMORPGs (and RTSs) will always remain exclusive to the PC, and there will always be a reason to return to the PC for games in those genres.

 

Of course, Blizzards ideas about developing MMOs for the console could soon be outdated. Final Fantasy XIV will enter the online arena in Q4, and it isn’t exclusive to the PC. In fact there’s a very large possibility that the game has been designed from the ground up to support console play, like Final Fantasy XI before it. Players have been able to play Final Fantasy XI on consoles for many years now, so even when Blizzard made the above statements in 2006, they could have been considered outdated.

 

 PC Gaming Rise Final Fantasy XIV

 

Even if a new, prosperous, market for MMORPGs were to be found on consoles, this still wouldn’t remove any of the reasons to game on a PC. With services such as Steam and Direct 2 Drive it’s never been easier to buy a game you like and install it. The former also has a huge community centred around it and has just as many, if not more, features as Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

 

PC Gaming Starcraft II

 

The Real Time Strategy game is one genre that cannot be duplicated on consoles, even though developers have tried. It’s not that these games aren’t a “success” (of course this completely depends on how you define the word), it’s just that there’s not much of a market on consoles for them. Consoles are designed for simplicity, you turn on your Playstation 3 on, pop the disc in, and then you’re ready to play. This ease of use isn’t something that PC gamers have the pleasure, however that’s why we’re PC gamers. We love to boot a game up, and tweak it to our liking. Consoles are designed for quick play and to provide you with entertainment as quickly possible, that’s why First Person Shooters are popular on them because you just aim and shoot. RTSs don’t provide that type of gameplay. In most RTSs, you’ll end up playing for hours on end in one match, slowly building up your resources, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. They’re all about strategy and planning, and so are MMORPGs, and that’s why they’ll never be such a commercial success on consoles.

 

Now I know I’m stereotyping here. I know not all console gamers are restless teenagers who just want to shoot another human in the head with an AK-47. I also know that there are some incredibly artistic and beautiful games on consoles, such as ICO and Okami, sadly these games don’t sell millions.

 

In this respect PCs will always have a home for not only MMORPGs and RTSs (as well as many other genres), but also artistic games like “The Path. This is what makes PC gaming so great and so powerful (because of the variety that’s always available on the platform), not to mention the fact that it’s a great format to test a new idea on.

 

People and companies complain about piracy, however these complaints generally have absolutely no backing to them. One such example is that of Infinity Ward’s community manager, who in 2008 complained about “rampant” PC Piracy[3]. The only problem is that the community manager never released figures. “What wasn’t fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online),” Fourtwozero complained after the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This was the reason that the company decided not to have dedicated servers and created a dumbed down Xbox 360 port for the PC.

 

Of course, the main problem with this claim that piracy is killing the PC industry is that you have organisations such as Blizzard and Valve who have built their whole company around PC gaming, and continue to do so. In fact Valve have updated Team Fortress 2 with maps, class updates, extra items and hats so many times that the game looks completely different from when it launched in 2007. These companies have not gone bankrupt, that’s because they both create games that are considered some of the best in the industry and they constantly innovate and evolve

 

These new numbers released by the PCGA show that PC gaming can achieve great heights, and is continuing to grow by billions of Dollars every year. Not only that but the PC gaming hardware market is also worth $9.5 billion [4]!

 

Games to me mean something incredibly special. There is something magical about setting foot inside a giant world for the first time, or following a Professor, helping him to solve puzzles. These are feelings only video games can provide. That is the beauty of the industry, and it’s refreshing to see that where it all began (with the PC) is where it is continuing to grow and expand.

 

[1] Source – http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/i_paulsams_wow

[2] Source – http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-blizzard-in-talks-with-microsoft-about-next-xbox

[3] Source – http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50748

[4] Source – http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/18665

Zodiac OnlineÂ’s New Expansion Due May 7th

Zodiac Online’s New Expansion Due May 7th

The newest expansion of Zodiac Online – the Fantastic Journey is releasing on May 7th. In this expansion, we’re adding more features such as the daily Fancy Draw System, the weekly Trivia Contest, and the monthly Zodiac Arena games. Besides, the max level will be raised up from 70 to 90.

 

The Fancy Draw System is something like a small casino, players can pay gold to draw a card from 25 cards and get the reward shown on the other side of the card.

 

Fancy Draw System Zodiac Online
Fancy Draw System

 

The Trivia Contest is a simulation of the exams in ancient China. Players need to pass 5 exams to get an honor of a Doctor and a shiny light around the feet.

 

Trivia Contest Zodiac Online
Zodiac Online’s Trivia Contest

 

The Zodiac Arena is a battle among many teams. Players need to fight in the unit of team until there’s only one team left in the arena area.

 

Zodiac Online Arena
The Zodiac Arena

 

Zodiac Online is a free-to-play MMORPG for all people at any age. The game is full of Chinese cultural elements, especially the 12 Zodiac Signs. Also it has colorful and cute graphics, which have attracted a lot of young girls. Unlike the battles in other real-time games, players in Zodiac don’t need to decide what to do in battles in a hurry, so even those who don’t have any experience on playing games can handle this game easily. It’s truly a game to relax and enjoy rather than rush to complete!

 

With this fantastic expansion, we’re pretty sure that our players are going to have another couple of sleepless nights.

HoMMo: Asian Closed Beta Begins May 7th!

HoMMo: Asian Closed Beta Begins May 7th!

 

TQ Digital have confirmed that their anticipated MMO, Heroes of Might and Magic Online, licensed by renowned publishers Ubisoft, will be entering it’s Asia area closed beta on May 7th.

Fans of Heroes of Might & Magic, one of the most loved PC-franchises of the last 15 years, can finally take their adventure to the MMO space on May 7th with Heroes of Might and Magic Online, developed under the careful study of established china-based online games developer, TQ Digital.

With millions of players already habiting their other titles, including such well known names as Eudemons Online and Conqueror Online, TQ Digital have had a wealth of expertise to call on while crafting a playing experience based around the wants and needs of the series’ loyal fans.

Licensed by Ubisoft – who boast a host of mega-franchises, including The Settlers and Assassins Creed – Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM) Online will take players back to the classic gameplay elements of HoMM III, mixing it with the stunning updated graphics of HoMM V in a 2.5D turn-based massively multiplayer environment.

Though Ubisoft introduced a new universe to the series for HoMM V, their first title after acquiring the franchise from 3DO Company, TQ Digital are finally bringing the popular fantasy setting of Erathia back, which debuted in 1999 releases, HoMM III and Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor.

Gameplay in Heroes of Might and Magic Online is as varied as it is beautiful, with gorgeous graphics complementing your epic quest to prove your valiant leadership.

Chose from a variety of 8 unique factions, develop elaborate castles that dominate the skyline of bustling metropolis Harmondale – epicenter of trade in the sweeping Antagarichean continent – plunder resources in exhilarating missions and fortify your armies against the inevitable wars of domination that lie ahead as you carve out your own legacy like the legions of plucky adventurers before you.

Experience magic based on an innovative in-game star system. Cast a new spell to increase your proficiency or perfect spells through a dynamic online training center.

Randomly generated combat maps, designed with strategic gameplay in mind, ensure you will need to think studiously about unit formations and tactics, while the hundreds of unique campaigns, each with deep storylines and goals, including 10 chapters of battlefield missions, are guaranteed to keep play refreshing throughout.

Develop towns of different races with the unique Town Prestige System, form guilds, gather resources, and prove your worth in the bloody-thirsty Challenging Arena. TQ Digital will be hosting a slew of PK events with HoMM Online: Team PK and Extreme PK are only the tip of the iceberg, with these events providing opportunities to gain priceless honor points and increase faction reputation.

Summary of HoMM Online game features:
• First Persistent World Turn-Based Strategy MMO
• 8 towns, 16 classes and 56 creatures
• Hundreds of campaigns with epic storylines
• Unique Anima and Dragon Scale Forge System
• Glorious Guild Building & Exciting Guild Wars
• Challenging Arena and PK Tournaments
• Heroes can build towns of different factions

The Asia area closed beta for HoMM Online launches on May 7th.

 

 

Heroes of Might and Magic Online Closed Beta Begins 7th of May

Zero Online: May Events

 

Zero Online: May Events
In order to celebrate the forthcoming new expansion – Galactic Armada, Zero Online has annouced a string of fun events, new updates, and new functions for you to enjoy! Let us see what will happen in ZO this month!

1. New Function – Friend Trading System
Have you ever thought of buying or selling friends in-game? Now, ZO provides you such an amazing chance! If you get sold by your friend, you may be put into the slave market and work for your friend.

2. New Warship – X FighterNew Warship – X Fighter is a Carrier based, manned fighter, with the design totally focused on the maximum speed of the fighter. It can decelerate and impair the affects of the DF-Mod.

Zero Online - New Xfighter Warship

3. New mission – Vertical Limit
There will be 18 stages for you to enter into, and that means you will have the chance to win some amazing gifts! But nothing good in this world comes for free! You’ll need to pay to enter each stage. You will have the chance to win some great prizes, or even up to 138x your entry fee! Come and check it out for yourself!

4. New Function – Screenshot Onekey Upload
Is it troublesome to upload those screenshots by yourself? This new function will help you upload your screenshots with almost no effort at all! All you need to do is to press F12, and then a box will pop up and ask you to fill in some required information. After you do that, the screenshots will be automatically uploaded to the official website! It is so easy, right? Why not give it a shot at that time?

5. Cosmos Apocalypse 71–80
The world of ZO offers you the precious chance to explore the wide and mysterious cosmos. By joining the Cosmos Apocalypse, your piloting and unit will be put to the test! Upon completion, you won’t just claim items, but also an honorable title! You will be rewarded with a Genetic Resource Pack, a Lottery Pack, 2 Military Badges and 500 ZPs (Bound) by finishing the Cosmos Apocalypse Stages 71–80.

6. Routine Weekend Event – Othello’s Kr/Carry the Ores/The More The Merrier/Attack the Phantom/Dark Crystals (May 1 – 2 & May 15 – 16)
The recent solar storm has caused severe damage to the Alliance’s energy systems. If not enough energy ore is collected by the end of the month, the entire Alliance will grind to a halt, due to power shortages. To correct this power crisis, ZO will hold routine weekend events every Saturday and Sunday, where you can exchange Kr Ores you collect for ZPs! Time to do your part!

7. Routine Weekend Event & Endless Love (May 8 – 9)
Mother’s Day is a holiday when children honor their mothers with cards, gifts, and flowers. In many countries, people celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May, and this year, Mother’s Day falls on May 9th! So in addition to the new Routine Weekend Event coming, we will prepare a special event to celebrate it! You can take part in this “Endless Love” quest, to deliver red roses to Canossa and earn some amazing rewards!

8. Routine Weekend Event & Swap Online Time for Gift (May 22 – 23)

This weekend, ZO players who are above level 60 can claim 1 free gift from the kit, when you remain online for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hours. Not only that, but you will have the chance to win a Military Badge, Double Exp Potion, Gene Module, +1 Chomsky Atom, +2 Chomsky Atom, +3 Chomsky Atom, Exp Recorder and Amethyst Pack! Good luck!

Players Launch Open Beta for Battle of the Immortals

 Players Launch Open Beta for Battle of the Immortals

 

Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a wholly owned US subsidiary of Perfect World Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: PWRD), today announced that Battle of the Immortals is now in open beta thanks to the thousands of players that participated in the closed beta. As part of the closed beta, Perfect World Entertainment rewarded players’ survey feedback and took forum threads, in-game chatter and blog comments into consideration. 

 

Players can look forward to WASD movement, tab targeting, key binding, streamlined interface and improved access to the highly-coveted Soul Gear equipment as a result of their closed beta participation and survey feedback. 

 

“Demand for Battle of the Immortals has been tremendous and to help launch the open beta, we are unveiling a new server, Aquarius. This is following the flood of players that made the closed beta such a success and subsequently resulted in us opening additional servers within 20 minutes of launch,” said Jonathan Belliss, Product Manager for Battle of the Immortals. “Our Shanghai development studio and I would like to thank our players for helping to shape Battle of the Immortals into their own game. We’ve had great success and understand that our games are only as great as our players.”

 

The new MMORPG from Perfect World Entertainment, Battle of the Immortals is an action RPG MMO that combines eastern and western cultures ranging from Norse Mythology to the Qin Dynasty. Heavily online PvP focused, players will explore tombs and dungeons for the highly-coveted Soul Gear equipment.

 

For more information on Battle of the Immortals, please visit the official website

BOI News Open Beta

Karma: Operation Barabossa: Player Versus Player Versus Zombies

Karma: Operation Barabossa: Player Versus Player Versus Zombies
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), OnRPG Journalist

 

It’s been a while since we last saw an new FPS online game, and might I say that this one doesn’t disappoint. Karma: Operation Barabossa is a fictional MMOFPS set in World War II, where the Germans continue to harass the land of Europe (like I said, completely fictional). Perhaps another factor that would stress the “fiction” part completely would be the ravaging zombies walking around (yep, that’s right! Zombies), all thanks to the Mad Scientist, Dr Fritz who lost it during the war. Now that I think about it, the game seems to be a bit late as the zombie era of gaming pretty much ended 2 years ago (if you remember, 2008 = Left 4 Dead, Zombie Apocalypse, Resident Evil 5 etc). The visuals are absolutely stunning, and it is very hard to compare with its older counterparts. It’s a fatal-three-way of Player vs Player vs Zombies, so nothing can get more action-packed thanthat.

 

PVPVE

Karma: Operation Barabossa is a mixture of games like Left 4 Dead, Battlefield, and Call of Duty MW2. It’s still PVP, but unlike most MMOFPSs, you can also gain points (level up) by killing the zombie NPCs that flood the arena. The best part about this game is how they managed to take different elements from trademark games and still come up with a product that not only makes these elements work surprisingly well, but also makes it all feel fresh in some way. There are a lot of zombies in the game, and by “A LOT” I mean hordes of undead beings. It may not be that original, but you can’t deny that there’s nothing more satisfying than driving a solid bullet through a zombie’s head.

 

Karma Building

 

Classes

There are two factions to choose from: Germans & Russians (Sorry folks, the zombie faction stays in Left 4 Dead :P). Worry not though, for the game does have a nice set of classes that will keep you playing for hours. There are four default classes in all, each with their own set of weapons and specialties to suit the player’s preferred playstyle. There’s the Sniper, who technically serves his comrades from afar, the Heavy Weapons Expert, who shoots weapons of mass destruction, the Squad Support who shoots rapid artillery behind the front line, and of course, the common Assault Squad who tend to get bitten first (lol). Since the game is more hostile than your average MMOFPS, players must work together in order to overcome the odds, strategizing all the way while making use of the classes provided.

 

Game modes

The game has a limited set of maps, but don’t get me wrong as each of these arenas are big enough to keep you from getting bored. Each arena also has its own set of game modes that keeps the game from being linear. There’s the common Team Deathmatch, which basically consists of 2 teams duking it out to see who’s the victor, Demolition mode, which is similar to “Destroy the Target” Campaigns, and the most awesome mode in the game-Annihilation mode, which yanks our 2 teams to a killing race to see who can kill the most zombies per round.

 

Karma Gun

 

Small Details

The game looks and plays very well, but like most games, it does have its own share of cons. My first problem with the game would have to be its maps, or rather the lack of them. It’s a very enjoyable game all in all, but maps are quite essential for PVPFPSs. You don’t see us playing Counterstrike on the DE-Dust map for 3 hours, so a few more maps should do the trick. Although this problem doesn’t affect most people, the game also lacks a good selection of guns which keeps a player from fully expressing his playstyle. This isn’t Left 4 Dead where you just randomly point and shoot, and the choices of guns found in FPS shooters are there for a purpose (not just variety). Guns are mainly mass produced in FPSes in order to see that each player gets the playstyle he wants, rather than simply carrying the same sniper rifle all day. Like I said, it may not be a problem to some gamers, but it does affect pro games on the long run.

 

Graphics and Interface

The interface looks lot like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. HUD elements like HP and bullets are placed in rather familiar places, which can be good since everyone’s used to having it there. There’s also the familiar experience count which flashes right above your target after killing it, which was obviously taken from COD: MW. The graphics on the other hands are flawless, with each character rendered to perfection. The background or arena is also something to behold, with dynamic shaders and cool lighting effects that make the stage fitting for the theme. The guns look perfect (almost real) and effects like smoke and explosions make the game action-packed. What truly captured my heart was the framerate. The game runs extremely well, with fewer choppy frames which tend to ruin your gaming experience/zen. When it comes to MMOFPS graphics, this game is god.

 

Karma Healing

 

The verdict

Zombies meet Call of Duty? What will they think up next? The game is definitely something to look forward to as it’s still on Beta. There are still a lot of things to improve but the game is definitely on the right track. It may not be that original in the gaming world, but definitely a breakthrough in the MMO spectrum. The game modes are enjoyable, making me crave the real thing. The only thing keeping me from giving this game a high score, is the fact that I still have to wait for it.

 

The Good:
– ZOMBIES man! What else?
– The visuals are one of the best in the spectrum
– Diverse game modes (I’m tired of capture the flag)
– It’s PVPVE! A breakthrough!

 

The Bad:
– Needs more guns
– Gets old after a while due to its limited game modes
– Needs more maps.