Mediwar Review: Not Much To Play
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), Onrpg Journalist
The game was getting to me (in a bad way) even before I got to play it. There was a certain bug upon registration that just kept getting on my nerves. They wanted me to check the “I will NOT hunt for BUGS” agreement which I’ve been clicking and checking for countless tries. That’s probably the same as telling the Ghostbusters that the house down the road that’s completely soaked in blood isn’t haunted. Geez, no wonder they didn’t want people to hunt for bugs! It’s already in front of you to begin with.
The game tends to make you figure things out without any form of tutorial once you start the game. After getting your custom password from your mail, you’ll be taken to the news page where the game updates are posted. If you’re as confused as I was, you can start the game by pressing the HOME button at the top left portion of your screen. There… now I guess we can finally start properly from here. For those of you who don’t know by the way, Mediwar is an MMO Browser game that lets you join the virtual fantasy war in the comforts of textblocks and pictures.
The Beginning
You’ll be prompted to choose sides upon starting the game. There are races all in all complete with their own silly taglines. Since I can’t really let this pass, I’d like to personally dictate each line and expand them thoroughly (it’s just awful). These lines reflect your race’s special ability, so be sure to understand them (LOL)
-“Annihilate enemy with the power of gold!” — Humans
-“We fight to defend, we defend to conquer!”– Dwarves
–“We rule your every move. Nothing can hide from us!” –Elves
–“No limit to our destruction, No defence too great !”-Orcs (SUPER OMEGA TYPO LOLFEST ZOMG DEFENCE!)
Just as their starting lines suggest (LOL), each race has their own unique feature that will aid you in your journey. Picking Humans will give you extra cash whenever you earn in game money. If you’re a hefty spender, then I’d suggest you pick Humans. When it comes to defensive gameplay, Dwarves are the way to go. With their bonuses in DEF(Defense), Dwarves are really hard to bring down. Given the right amount of money, these guys will take everything you throw at them. Elves in this game are rather nasty compared to their aristocrat counterparts in other games. Their featured bonus revolves around spying which lets them know more about their opponents, allowing them to counter accordingly (pretty sweet huh?). Orcs as you would have guessed have overwhelming damage. If given priority, these things can smash you down with a couple of swings.
Problems Already?
One thing about this game is that it launches you back to the news page after creating your character. You’ll be left alone to figure out what you need to do without the slightest bit of tutorials. User friendliness is one of the main aspects of every game regardless of how technical it’s supposed to be. A few tutorials could come in handy, so I guess it’s a point down in my book. If I must state what happened after I first created my character, I was left there with no idea of where to start or what I must do. There were no instructions and I just found myself randomly clicking on links hoping to stumble across the correct link. The HELP link doesn’t even show you anything but a link to the forums. Now it would help if the forums had instructions but… nevermind.
The Command post reflects your overall performance (as well as your units’) throughout the game. If you’re new to this, you might want to check the forums for scattered information on what these things mean. Once you do, only then will you be able to enjoy the game.
Preparing For Battle
You’ll be allotted 5000 gold for your start up money which you can spend on hiring your first army. It then occurred to me that bankruptcy could be one big issue in this game. Since attacking a player requires you to at least have an army to be able to win, having your soldiers die in the midst of battle could dead end your character after spending so much for their training. You can also buy more gears in order to strengthen your team’s performance as well as upgrade their skills to make them more proficient in terms of combat or spying. Again, the lack of tutorials prevailed. I practically saw nothing but the prices attached to them. You could say that the game revolves around a trial and error basis, since you basically have to figure out what you’re paying for.
Attacking
When in your command post, you can order your troops to attack your enemies. You’ll be given a list of people to attack along with the number of their army. This by far is the best way to earn gold, and of course the best way to lose it too. Money earned through battle tends to deplete if you keep farming on a certain individual. The game shares an action point system that’s referred to as turns. Attacking an individual depletes your turn points depending on how many turns you used to kill your opponent. For those of you who don’t know, the number of turns are displayed right below the main menu. Once you run out of turn points, your army is left in stasis and must wait for your next turn (indicated by the “Next Turn” text above your inbox) which would normally take 30 minutes or so (I don’t know, you tell me).
Character Profile
The verdict
I really hate dismissing games this way but Mediwar is just terrible. Not only does it have no more than 40+ players online (2 players online when I signed in), it lacks almost every basic MMO aspect there is! Tutorials, descriptions, objectives, visuals, and most of all… Players. Playing this game was a total waste of my time. Not only did it make me crawl in the dark, it also pissed me off at some point. Banging my head on the wall felt a lot better than this. The loony race lines were bad enough, but I never thought the game itself was this bad. If you want to play a good browser game, then I suggest you stay away from this game. This isn’t a game… it’s a riddle site that beats the likes of Zest and Notpron. And just for emphasis “STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME!”
The good:
-Good looking insignia (at some point at least)
-It really had a good theme (too bad though)
-Good introduction
The bad:
-The game has no direction whatsoever
-Lack of tutorials
-Lack of item, unit, ETC description
-Lowest player base I’ve ever seen
-Really confusing
-irritating verification box where you must copy the number stated in order to verify that you’re not using a bot.
