War Thunder Review – Reach for the Sky!

By Isaac (Afromania) and Mike (Mikedot) Sagoe, OnRPG Journalists

 

 

Ah yes… World War II, one of the most historic turning points bestowed upon this planet. It was the second Great War that defined the essence of black and white, good versus evil, freedom and tyranny between the Allied Forces and the Axis Powers. It was an era that allowed our grandparents to call them “the greatest generation” as they rose to become heroes and pushed the United States to become the leader of the free world.  It was also a time where game developers and publishers continued to remind me of the “greatest generation” during my high school years because on the fact that every month, they would throw a new WWII game at my face because they knew we’d never get tired of running up the beaches of Normandy for the hundredth time. Alas, I now have the chance to relive those moments from the lesser treaded path in Gaijin Entertainment’s War Thunder, a free-to-play MMO that’s set in iconic WWII planes. Players will do battle in the skies as realistic recreations of iconic battles occur all around them including tanks firing into the sky and ships battling over the seas.

 

 

When starting the game up for the first time, players are given a personal hanger with a fresh aircraft and are given a slew of options before heading into the battle. Gamers can pick between five mighty nations that occupied the time period: United States, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Great Britain and Japan, with each nation having their own distinct aircrafts.

 

 

Players can go through purchasing upgrades and modifications for their planes.  Upgrades include stronger guns that carry more ammo during combat and shoot farther distances and setups for various layouts like attackers, bombers and fighter planes. Players can then test pilot many of the aircraft types to get a feel for their performance prior to purchase. Besides hardware, players can upgrade their crew’s pilots and gunners with betters stamina, vision, accuracy, healing and reloading speeds. All these additions are available through purchase with in-game currency (Silver Lions) as well as Golden Eagles which can be earn through progression of the game modes and/or purchased with real money.

 

 

Players will have access to tutorials to get familiar with the controls, as well as their plane’s strengths and weaknesses.  It is important to spend some extra time here because I (stupidly) chose to ignore the tutorial sessions and headed straight into combat. Here was my chance to live my top gun fantasies trying to pull off loops, spirals and aerials, only to see my planes hit the dirt, all within 5 minutes.

 

Wanted to fly high in the sky like Tom Cruise and instead went crashing into the dirt like Lindsay Lohan.

 

In the beta, I had the choice between playing through missions or jumping straight into multiplayer pvp. Playing through missions (accompanied by 3 human players or the AI Bots) is filled with re-creations of battles that were pivotal moments set between Allies and Axis. Players are given primary tasks to complete along with secondary tasks that can be tackled during these missions. Most of the tasks will revolve around players having to occupy strongholds, or destroy the enemy post and vehicles.

 

 

This game is a tad bit different than its obvious rival at Wargaming as you have as many tries in a mission as you have planes that can be brought into combat. Once you lose all your planes, you’ve failed the mission. I can see with a little bit of teamwork via voice chat that epically choreographed strike plans could be performed to really ace these PvE missions. But in reality just shooting down enemies without any coordination is usually enough to clear this training exercises so you can jump into the real game, pvp.

 

 

Multiplayer modes will give players the options to partake in ‘Historical Battles’ that have two nations from opposing factions go head-to-head with realistic situations. Players only have access to aircrafts of these two battling countries. Realistic physics and limitations are placed on the aircraft, meaning running out of fuel or wings coming off from pushing your engines past recommended speeds are a real threat. Arcade mode is the more simplified head-to-head match style where players can use any planes of their choice on various maps. I began my first multiplayer experience with arcade mode, and the queue times to get into a match just seemed to take forever.  Once you do get into a match, expect to get acquainted with the clouds, since you’ll be spending more time traveling to your battle destination than battling enemies. By the time I reached the combat zone, most players had already dropped out of game after going through their reserve aircrafts.

 

 

In term of visual presentation, the strongest visuals stand out among the aircrafts themselves. It is apparent that the developers spent proper time to make sure each aircraft is portrayed closely to their real counterparts. Metal textures like chrome, aluminum, and wooden gloss finishes start to glisten when placed in proper lighting in contrast with their iron flying relatives. Every decal, rust, and bit of scraped paint is depicted with such clarity that the planes displayed in your aircraft hangar are very gorgeous to look at. Landscapes however, take the opposite route out from being gorgeous. From afar, they look moderately nice, but when you get close to a certain point, landmasses, foliage and buildings come off looking smudged and blocky.

 

 

Sound production in game is done well. Players enter the game with an orchestral greeting when you enter its halls or just as you look through the game’s menu options. The music tries its best to get you pumped for the battle ahead, but becomes short lived once players head into game. The aircrafts sounds are distinct and they did a good job with fitting the engines’ sounds with the planes, such as an American P-26A-33 Peashooter fighter engine sounding differently from a British Gladiator Mk IIF. The distinctiveness and detail in each plane is something that can be appreciated by gamers, plane fans and war veterans alike.

 

 

Overall War Thunder has some very interesting ideas that can make for intense and fulfilling gameplay. There’s plenty of planes to be unlocked and missions where players can hone their pilot skills, along with experience and credits that can be bought to purchase upgrades. Gamers who are into aircraft simulators will feel right at home in this section of the game. The only downsides I had was with the waiting times for getting into a match and what you will be able to do once you get in. If you are not into WWII, you might not be interested in paying for the game’s war mission packs. If you are a history buff that likes to experience the art flying combat over the sandy beaches, Than War Thunder could be your fancy.

Fanservice Everywhere! Welcome to Pirate Maidens

By Vincenthaoson, OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Okay, before I start, I would be honest with you guys that before I started playing Pirate Maidens, I expected the game to have a lot of scantily clad, pirate themed ladies flocking your screen in each passing second, with the hopes of trying to entice you to spend more time on the game.

 

While I was never really far off from my prediction. I would say that I just barely touched the tip of the iceberg when I eventually plunged into Aeria Mobile’s Pirate Maidens (pun intended).

 

Oh Hello Sir!

 

 

Pirate Maidens introduces you into the world where pirates are all made up of heavy-buxom ladies in pirate attire (some barely have anything on at all) where you are just a starting “captain” in this world. Based on the quest course you’d take in your starting quest, you would then embark on the usual RPG-esque adventure that’s filled with generic quests and hammy lines from your NPCs.

 

 

Three sides of the coin

As you begin your quest within Pirate Maidens you will eventually have to choose an affiliation among the three “groups” in-game. Aeria mobile boasts that the storyline these three nations provide is robust and you can as easily switch sides as easily as changing your outfit.

 

 

The three sides in fact have a Rock-Paper-Scissors kind of relationship where each class is weak and strong against one of the two making the game quite interesting for beginners.

 

Your Ladies

 

 

Aside from choosing which faction you’d be affiliated with, the game allows you to choose among the scantily clad pirates you have as your “primary lady” or in other words, your ace in the hole. The game’s primary gameplay mechanic is the acquisition (or in this case “rescuing”) the various lady pirates and adding them to your roster. Each pirate you rescue has her own stats, rarity level, affiliation and special skill  which would serve as their coup de grace in quest and PvP battles.

 

Aside from your attack crew, you also have a defense crew that defends your backside since you are already open to player attacks from the get go.

 

 

Another feature in Pirate Maidens is the capacity to upgrade or “enhance” your current ladies by using other lesser pirates to increase their level. So there will be times that you’d be facing against the same crew setup, but you’d be eating the pavement since the crew you’re facing has a higher level set of pirates than yours.

 

Fanservice Galore

 

 

I haven’t really touched on the aspect of the game since I’d like to dedicate a section in my review for the fan service the game delivers. As the game’s title implies, Pirate Maidens is a game about Pirate Maidens. So any normal gamer out there already expects that you’d be seeing a lot of ladies in both provocative attire and poses. But here’s the thing. Pirate Maiden has it a lot. And when I say a lot, I do mean every.single.pirate! Think of animes that have harem themes (Mahou Sensei Negima or Love Hina for example) and put it within the context of pirates.

 

Some characters have the usual provocative poses but there are some that tether along the lines of NSFW. So if you’re more of the type of person who doesn’t want too much objectification of women, I suggest you STEER CLEAR of this game. Seriously.

 

 

Conclusion

As I played Pirate Maidens, it felt like I was transported back in time when I was still a kid and had this deck of playing cards with barely nude ladies (sometimes totally) in various provocative poses. It was enjoyable on a lot of ways, but it’s something you don’t want to be caught red-handed with by your lady friends (or your mom) unless, they’re into these kinds of things or that they’re already used to seeing you play with these kinds of games.

 

 

Gameplay is solid and I found no other comments to add to that, but it is often eclipsed by the sheer amount of fanservice the game provides. Not only does the game give a zoomed version of the pirates you “rescue” but adding the option to listen to the Japanese voice-overs is just too sweet a feature and totally unexpected. Of course the fear is there that the fan service can get quite repetitive and boring once you collected all the pirates the game has to offer. But as far as I’ve seen I don’t think one can say that he has collected every.single.pirate out there since the game has it in spades.

 

Replayability is quite high but grindy to a fault. The newer pirates that get added to the game require tons of “battles” against them before you can get them. PvP battles on the earlier levels can be quite interesting and requires you to add a little strategy in setting up your attack and defense crews. I liked that there is a clear distinction among the pirates allowing a skilled player to understand their value as either a defensive of offensive factor in your line-up.

 

 

The other thing that I’ve noticed is the uselessness of the nation system weaknesses in the late game. Since you have the capacity to enhance your pirates, the RPS system is deemed useless in the late game. The metagame is in fact totally different from the intended game system but you won’t really take notice of it since as I’ve mentioned it’s been eclipsed by the fan service.

 

 

If you’re looking for a competitive card-game styled game, Pirate Maidens is a decent choice. Though I’m already warning you that your progress will be severely hampered if you won’t invest money in the game- it’s not a totally deterring factor in giving you a very formidable crew.

 

But heck, I don’t even think that you’d really look into those things since you’d be staring mostly at the voluptuous ladies in front of you right?

 

Nuff said.