Yearly Archives: 2009

Kicks Online International Review: Kick it! You Know You Want To

By Vincent Haoson (Vincenthaoson), Onrpg Journalist

Kicks Online International is a Soccer-themed sports MMO from Run Up, the company that handles games Shaiya Online, Angels Online and Luna Online. The game centers around street-style soccer and gets you and your friends to go head to head with other players to know who really rules the soccer field.

Character Creation

In kicks Online, you get to customize the starting look of your character. Aside from that you are then introduced to the preliminary stats your character has and you are given ten points to allocate it on what you want your character to be.

You also get to decide what position your character is playing, you can either decide to become a forward, midfielder, defender or a goalie. Each type has its own set of predetermined stats that are suitable for the playing style of the position. As you progress through the game and level up, your character would grown from the starting class and would eventually become a more specialized soccer player.

Game Modes

In Kicks online, the standard matchup would be 3v3, but matches can reach to 4v4 and 5v5 if the room owner permits it. Street-soccer rules apply and everything goes. The whole idea in Kicks Online is to make sure you get the ball in goal. The team that has more points in the end wins.

Street Soccer Goal

Game Features

In Kicks Online, you can buy various clothes and accessories in the shop for your character. Unlike most games where the accessories have added attributes, in Kicks Online the clothes and whatnot are just mere eye candy.

Aside from the default controls you character has, you can also buy skills that help out by giving your characters more moves that it can do in the game. The skills are level locked however and so you must have enough credits to purchase the skills you want.

Another thing in Kicks Online is that the game has a quest system that gives you credits as you finish each quest. The type of quests and the difficulty increases as you play through each quest. The types of quests include as simple as participating in five games to trying to successfully tackling an opponent twice.

Character Growth

Kicks Online has a unique character growth system that keeps you up your toes as you play the game. You start off with the initial three positions of Forward, Midfielder and Defender. As you progress through the game and you allocate the points you earn per level you would then be given a new title later on.

For the forwards you can grow to become a Striker, Center Forward and Wing Forward. For the Midfielders you can grow into a Side Midfielder, Center Midfielder or Defend Midfielder. As for the Defenders you can grow into a Side Defender, Center Defender or a Sweeper.

Conclusion

Kicks Online is one of those games that has truly captured the essence of the sport their trying to make into. The game has everything covered when it  comes to the player positions add that the growth system is a nice and unique way for players to get to know what position suits they’re playing style best.

The game provides enough encouragement for you to enjoy not only the game itself but also in making you try to reach for the goal. Even with the limited customization options you have the game provides you at least the freedom to clothe your soccer player as you choose, even if they’re not exactly that effective in real life soccer.

Aside from the novelties of the eye candy factor of the game, the other thing that makes the game such a fun MMO to play is that the smooth controls you have, it feels as if your character is reaction to a slight touch of the keyboard as you play.

However, the smoothness of the controls is connected to the internet connection of the game. This is one of the biggest determining factors if the game you are joining in would be smooth or not. As most games that has more than two players simultaneously, the lag factor of each player comes into effect. The problem with the lag is that even if nine out of then ten players who are currently playing the game seems to have a decent connection, the game would be affected if one of the players has a lousy connection the game would suffer.

Kicks Teams

Another thing about the game is that the controls can be too complicated especially for those first time users. The thing about online PC games is that the controls have been that simpler unless its an MMORPG. For an action game such as Kicks Online, the keyboard controls seems to be off, and the fact of the matter is that this would be better played using a gamepad.

However, the game doesn’t really give you that option so you would have to get used to being called names first because the players you’d be playing with are either those who have already played the game for quite some time or that they are just new alternate characters of old players.

Speaking of which, the game’s population seems to be small for an international game. It took me about two hours to see anyone logged in, and about an hour or so before I was able to join in a game. This would have been a nice game if there were just a lot of people playing but it seems that the game lacks that much players.

If you are looking for a sport MMO that really puts you into the position of a soccer player then Kicks Online is a game that might as well be suited for you, if you are patient enough for people to come in then the game would be a nice entertaining experience for you, just as long as those who are part of your game are not laggers.

Pros:
– You get to play against other players through soccer
– The games gives you enough freedom to grow into the position that suits you
– You can customize the look of your character.

Cons:
– There are too many things to remember when it comes to the game controls
– You would find it hard to join games specially when your alone
– Low server population.

Age of Armor Review: Just PvP Really

By Bryan King (Bryan), Onrpg Journalist

Warning, you are about to enter a 1990s flashback…

As a kid, I remember sporadically crashing my Lego creations together, creating wars of different childish robot parts, making different sound effects (my mom would look at me funny) and eventually destroying parts of the robots. Those were good times. But as society has advanced, so has our thinking of mechs. So much even that SnailGame created Age of Armor, a game based around the automatons.

Storyline

The Storyline of the game revolves around the competing for resources by the Federal Union, disbanding of the United Nations, and the battle of the Federal Union against the rebel Arthur Alliance. So, where do you stand in this war?

Gameplay

After dealing with a confusing character creation and a slap in the face with resolution issues, I let out a sigh of relief after finally getting inside of the game. Unfortunately, the least of my problems had not started. I had been given a tutorial that barely explained anything, other than giving me a couple of tips on what to start out with in sentences of broken English. This was a minor turn-off for me, but I had faced worse before.

The interface, in my opinion, is actually quite impressive, it’s lightweight and sleek, and gives the most critical information in an easily visualized pattern. The combat in the game is based around the simple fact that you battle and defeat mobs with you being in a mech.

As for actual combat, you basically click on an enemy, target it, and watch bullets fly, missiles hone, or your sword swing. It’s nothing really special other than the fact that it at least attempts to bring some sort of FPS feeling to it; it almost breaks out of the norm, but fails at doing anything impressive. Combat is extremely slow, and I found it taking forever to finish quests, even though I had some of the craziest pimped-out items that were available at my level.

One part where Age of Armor (finally) manages to outdo other games is in the customization levels. I had flashbacks when I was able to actually make my mech look like Optimus Prime. There are loads of parts for your character, allowing you to customize everything from your Control Cabin to your Engine. This may be bittersweet to gamers, due to the fact that some people prefer to keep things simple and straight to the point, not having to customize virtually every part of their character.

Age of Armor Players

The controls felt mildly slow, with the WASD controls, it didn’t feel fluid in any way, shape, or form. I constantly found myself being frustrated over the fact that when I tried to shoot a target, my character would end up power sliding or moving even closer. It’s just the fact that the controls can be unresponsive that pretty much ruins the gameplay.

There is a feature where your mech can turn into vehicles like a jet or a car, which is pretty cool, but is a rather obvious and blatant rip off of the well-known Transformers series.

Quests are absolutely terrible, giving you no clear direction of what to do in the beginning of the game other than a name and maybe a general direction. Of course, like other MMOs, a large portion of the game is based on this quest genre, so players have to ask the community where an NPC is. One quest I found ridiculous was when I was asked to “befriend a level 45” character… there is little left of what was the community, and finding a level 45 character is almost impossible.

One last thing that I have to summarize gameplay with is constant crashes, any type of popup in the background caused my client to crash, and this included Xfire messages, IMs, anything of the sort. Snailgame really needs to get it fixed, for every type of system.

Graphics & Sound

As for sound, Age of Armor simply does nothing special. Low-res textures, badly detailed models, and horrible monster and creature design made the game fail in all aspects of graphics. Animations are stiff, no, not in the sense of how a robot moves, but in the sense of every gun firing, NPC actions, it doesn’t flow well together.

Sounds are repetitive, with the same sounds being used for everything. The starter machine gun makes the same “pew pew” sound as the level ninety pistol, the starter swords make the same sound as the level fifty ones. Snailgame either needs to remake this in a large game patch, or completely renew the system all together.

Mechs

PvP Systems

Age of Armor does a good job recreating an environment where players can go toe-to-toe and defend and attack for their faction. There is a city siege faction where an invasion process by each faction in order to try to push into a city and eventually try to capture it, players get rewards by owning these cities.

There is also a Server Destroying war in which both factions compete to destroy a central guard, and whichever faction fails to destroy the guard is exiled to the island of Exilian, an area where players can only receive a set amount of EXP over time. This period will last for seven days, but the losing faction will have a chance for one hour to kill the guard and take back their land. If they fail to do so in seven days, the Battle Planet will be destroyed after the main city is occupied.

However, the winning side is showered in gifts such as ammunitions, body dye-ups; attribute raising accelerating cards, Double Exp cards, Stable chips and Slot connectors and some other Items from the Item Shop.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Age of Armor does not deliver on much other than a built storyline and an interesting Player vs. Player aspect.

Pros:
– Decent Storyline
– Intense PvP
– Nice Interface
– Plenty of customization.

Cons:
– Horrid Tutorial
– Clunky gameplay
– Boring combat
– Frequent Crashes.

Mini Fighter And Netmarble Launched

CJ Internet, the leading global entertainment company, today announced the global launch of their Netmarble gaming portal in English. In addition, the first title to be featured on Netmarble.com, online action game Mini Fighter, will be launched as a Closed Beta next week on July 23. The Mini Fighter client will be available to download starting July 20. Players interested in joining the Beta can sign up to get Beta Keys on the official website, global.netmarble.com/minifighter/.
“Over the last eight years, we’ve worked hard to provide Korean gamers with the ultimate online destination for fun, engaging, and, above all, social gaming experiences,” said Youngjong Jung,  President and CEO of CJ Internet. “We are truly excited to open the doors of Netmarble to English-speaking gamers worldwide, bringing us one step closer to our goal of enriching lives the world over through online entertainment.”
Mini Fighter is a side-scrolling, MMO fighting game that combines easy-to-learn controls with RPG elements and a wide variety of game modes to choose from. Looking for a challenge? Try out the Quest and Boss modes to gain some valuable experience. Looking for something low-key? Pit your brain against your opponents’ in the Quiz Village. Want to bring the fight to your fellow players? Join a pitched Village battle of up to 210 players or hop on for the daily round of Siege Warfare. There’s something for everyone in Mini Fighter!

Mini Fighter

Perfect World Dev Journal

Less than a year out from its initial launch, Perfect World has already seen two expansions and an exponential growth of players. Join more than one million registered users and step into a Perfect World today.
Following our latest expansion, the “Age of Spirits”, we have implemented  a series of new changes and enhancements for our players. Following the release of this expansion, Perfect World International will be implementing the Wardrobe system.
The Wardrobe is similar to a stash or bank storage, except it exclusively holds Fashion items. Fashion items are extremely popular in Perfect World International, and players can access these items regardless of whether or not they choose to invest in the cash shop.  The addition of the Wardrobe System is an attempt to accommodate the extremely diverse and expansive fashion selection available to our users.
A new addition for our fashion conscious players is the new ability to automatically rotate fashion outfits.  Players can set their Wardrobe to switch up to eight different outfits, either in the order of their choosing or at random. They can also set the frequency of these changes-from every minute to several hours.
The Wardrobe can be accessed by clicking the Fashion Item button within your Bag. The icon will resemble a bag with a small shirt in the corner.  Clicking on this will bring up the Wardrobe. From here, you can see how many different items you have in your Wardrobe sorted by type: Body, Legs, Arms and Feet. Within the Wardrobe, players may also select the Fashion Change menu.
Within the Fashion Change menu, players can drag and drop complete outfits into the appropriate slots, or mix and match their fashion items for completely new looks. The Fashion Change menu gives players two options to instantly change their fashion outfits. Players can drag and drop a Fashion Change set to a hotkey to switch at their choice and leisure.
Players will also have the option to set up to four outfits to rotate on a timer-from one minute to 99 hours or anything in between. This will rotate the outfits automatically, no hot key required!
In the spirit of creating changes to Fashion in Perfect World International, we just completed a fashion contest for our users on July 13. Using current fashion items and pigments, we challenged players to create a new, unique set to be added permanently to our cash shop. In addition to having their set added, the winner will also have a sneak peek chance to choose any of the upcoming outfits.
Check a sampling of them below:
 
Yukata set
Male Yukata set
 
 
Female Yukata set 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Female Yukata set
 
Late night set
 
Late Night Set
 
 
After hours set
 
After hours set
 
 
Swimsuit set
 
Swimsuit set
 
 
Beach set
 
 
The Wardrobe system is just one of the new features we are continually adding to Perfect World International. Fashion items are a great way to make your character stand out against the crowd-are available to all players, cash shop users or otherwise.  In this day and age, individuality is becoming more and more culturally significant.  Try out an MMO that takes the concept of individuality to its furthest degree.

CTRacer CBT Launched

Greetings Racers!!!
We are please to tell you that CT Racer CBT will open its servers in 0800 +9GMT (CTR website time).  In just a few hours you will experience the ride of your life and the thrill of competition. Are you ready?!!!
 
The CT Racer website is currently LIVE and is waiting to activate your CBT keys. Please login your account at ctr.gamenetworks.com and activate your CBT keys at the given website.

CrimeCraft Weapons Customization

In CrimeCraft, guns are your best friends and to maximize your gang’s “heat on the street,” you’ll want to upgrade your weapons with the latest toys.  These newly released weapon renders showcase the many firearms available to would-be gang bangers, and illustrate various ways to enhance their effectiveness and increase the damage inflicted on anyone foolish enough to stand in your way.
All the weapons in CrimeCraft have a wide variety of customizable parts and the options are many.  Every weapon enhancer affects your gun in some way – whether it’s increasing your maximum effective range, refining your long-distance accuracy or minimizing its recoil and report.
 
Whether you and your crew are packing the Cabrese Fucilere 54-F or looking to fully equip your brand new Hargan Mastiff F, the customization options are numerous as you aim to dominate in the gritty world of CrimeCraft, where those with the best and biggest guns make all the rules.
CrimeCraft is a Persistent World Next-gen Shooter (PWNS) that blends a gripping, action-packed shooter experience with the best community and role-playing elements found in massively multi-player games. CrimeCraft is set in a gritty fictional city of the near future, following an ecological disaster of unprecedented scale, where the price of life is far less valuable than one’s reputation. Join thousands of players online as you learn the rules of the street, build your own gang and do whatever it takes to survive amidst the chaos.

WonderKing Closed Beta Launches

NDOORS Interactive today officially launched the closed beta of their adventure-filled new MMORPG, WonderKing. Over 30,000 hopefuls turned out across the internet to claim closed beta keys and most are expected to enter the game world during this closed beta period.
“We’re proud to welcome the first group of players into the world of WonderKing today,” said Peter Kang, CEO of NDOORS. “We plan to make good use of this closed beta period to fine tune the experience and we look forward to a seamless commercial launch later this summer.”
WonderKing is a 2D, side-scrolling MMORPG that takes players on an adventurous journey to become a hero and don the mantle of WonderKing. Your quest to save the realm will take you from beautiful beaches to murky marshlands and spooky ghost towns. Some of the features in WonderKing include:
* PvP: Challenge each other and battle one on one at a special map for points that can be exchanged for special in-game items.
* Pet System: Adorable and loyal AI animals will aid in hunting, item collecting, and other tasks.
* Class Advancement: The game allows players to focus on specific character abilities and advance to higher classes to learn even more powerful techniques.
* Mounts and Vehicles: Get moving with a variety of vehicles to ride and animals to mount, providing boosts to attack and defense.
* Castle Battles: Engage in PvP battles using siege warfare across castles. This system will be available for players later this year.
* Home Town System: Players can personally decorate a private room where they can rest and store items and trophies. Like castle battles, this system will be implemented later this year as well.
Designed for gamers of all ages, WonderKing is set in a vibrantly colorful world and features some of the most uniquely creative character designs and gorgeous graphics in any game. As with all of NDOORS’ titles, WonderKing is 100% free-to-play.

World of Kung Fu: New Version

World of Kung Fu, the free-to-play MMORPG with hundreds of thousands world-wide registered users, is preparing for a brand new patch with great more contents! With its mystical Chinese landscapes and various game features, World of Kung Fu provides a wonderful exploration to every player. Besides two new maps and Guarding Pet system, the new Version 1.0.53 will also bring magic inspired quests like never before.
As a big surprise to players who always support and like the classical event “Kungfu Campaign”, , experience and game coins are added into the “Kungfu Campaign Box” as special reward.  What’s more, even Divine Weapons are now possible to be found there.
At the same time, New Archeology quests, Daily Dungeon Quests and Guarding Pet Quests will go on stage too. The exploration for completing these quests is full of danger and challenge, but justice will assert itself. Fortunately, beautiful landscapes and friendship will accompany every player on their way.
On the way of exploring new maps “Qingyuan” and “Graveyard of Howling Wind”, players will be involved in even more stories and challenges. People living there are calling for their hero arising.
New monsters, Brand New fashion and new mounts will all mark their debut. New skills of all the 9 classes will also be added so that different classes can be more balanced.
Several rules as PvP and “Legendary School” will be adjusted as players wished to. The item “Ksitigarbha” – which is used to prevent from losing equipments after being killed in PvP – will be usable in the “Legendary School” event. It gives more protection to players’ rare gears and weapons and enables people to enjoy the event without any worry.
After the actual expansion hitting, player will have a delightful surprise when they find so many new features.