Serenia Fantasy, published by Koramgame, is a free-to-play 2D browser game. In this cute MMORPG you will experience a lively world with the nostalgia old-school animations many games back in the early days had. Everything in this game reminds me of those old NES games or Gameboy games back in the day, only Serenia Fantasy 10 times more vibrant.
Granado Espada is relaunching under Redbana with a slew of new features and content!
Path of Exile offers players one last chance to show their support from the start with these Kiwi Packs!
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist
Gunswords is an online turn-based tactical combat game, developed by One Button Studio, a Russian-based team. You take control of a squad of fighters who cover different aspects – guns, swords and magic – and lead them in to battle against other players. By taking part in combat you earn rewards and rank. If you are a fan of turn-based strategy games, but want a bit more action than most games offer, this may be the game for you.
PvP-centric. Gunswords is designed with the cyber-athlete in mind and offers a competitive ranking system to encourage this.
Matchmaking. There is a matchmaking system in place to make finding opponents as easy as possible.
15 Weapon Types. Swords, chainsaws, shotguns, miniguns, rocket launchers, magic, and more.
Upgrade your weapon. There are ten levels of upgrades for each weapon type.
Strategic turn-based combat. The combat in Gunswords takes place on a “game board” designed to promote strategic play using its turn-based system.
AI-controlled practice matches. Hone your skills against AI-controlled opponents. You can gain a bit of experience and money from fighting against the AI as well.
One Button Studio delivered in all the features they boasted on the website. The only problem I had was with the matchmaking. I as the only one logged in to the game and could not find an opponent with it, even though I waited at least 25 minutes trying to find a match. Besides that, I have to say good job.
The graphics in Gunswords are not good. I have seen worse in the past. One Button Studio could have delivered higher quality stuff. I admit that the cartoonish style fit with the “Tin soldier” theme. And players who have low-end PCs will like how little strain the graphics will put on their system. In the end, I am not happy with the quality.
Map design however was admirable. Despite the low quality graphics, I was able to appreciate the maps. Each of the maps I played on seemed to tell a story. Action sequences were also done adequately, though they were nothing spectacular. Overall, I have to say I was a bit let down by the graphics. While the “game atmosphere” mentioned on the website is definitely there, I could not find a trace of the “exceptional graphics” that was mentioned.
Not much to say in this area. The controls were, for the most part, all done with the mouse. I did not find anything bad or negative concerning the controls. At the same time, nothing about them made me think, “Hey! This is handy!” I can (and will) say I was satisfied with the controls.
Movement is done by selecting what member of your squad you want to move at the beginning of your turn. You then click on the map where you would like him to move, or you can click on an enemy to attack it if you have enough action points and are within range. Only one squad member can be used per turn. The system was swell, but I wish that I was able to do more with each turn.
The menus and user interface were annoying to navigate and could be down-right confusing at times. Something more efficient and easier to use should have been used rather than the mess that it is right now. Do not get me wrong, you can definitely figure it out. However, you will be asking yourself why it is so bad – constantly.
Gunswords offers little in this area. Setting up your squad can be pretty hands-on. Deciding what classes you want in your squad, and how many of each, is something you will spend some time on. You can buy armors and weapons to dress your soldiers in that offer bonuses to defense and offensive. There is a fairly large selection of items to choose from, as well.
Building your squad from the ground up is pretty fun. You get to decide the class of each member. The ability to name your squad members was nice, too. Who does not like naming characters after close friends and then sending them to die? I really liked the large amount of options that were available to me when it came to equipping my squad members, even if most of it was out of my reach.
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I could not see any sign of a community, actually. In all the time I spent playing, I did not come across another player. I was forced to play against the AI to get a feel of the gameplay. Hoping to find some idea of what the community offers, I went to forums. Not much to find there either, just a few threads.
I did notice that One Button Studio does respond to every thread. Which is commendable. I could not tell if the lack of players is due to the game still being in beta, or if it is because One Button Studio has yet to advertise their game. Perhaps it is just a lack of enthusiasm for the genre? I cannot say.
Gunswords offers an interesting concept by combining board game mechanics with 3D graphics and combat-centric game aspects. Building a squad and equipping them can be fun and the gameplay is delightful if you appreciate tactics. I normally cannot get enthusiastic about turn-based games, but found playing Gunswords quite enjoyable. I really enjoyed how the combat was done in this game.
You need Tin to buy items. Tin is the cash shop money that can be bought with real money. Fortunately, you can also gain Tin by playing games. I gained 100 for every AI game I played. The basic lower level items seemed to cost between 2,000 and 3,000 tin, with higher end items getting progressively more expensive.
Everything your squad members do is centered around action points. To move to another location, you have to spend action points. To use an ability, action points are spent. To attack – you guessed it, action points. Action points are nothing new to the turn-based genre and One Button Studio did nothing new with them.
Combat in Gunswords is pretty diverse. You are not limited to just offense. You can equip your mages to heal or buff, too. Ranged and melee combat both play a role in it all, too. If you want to be a decent commander, you need to balance your squad so it can cover all types of situations. A lot of the gameplay in Gunswords is centered around preparation rather than the actual combat.
I was surprised with how much I enjoyed Gunswords. While the graphics were not great, the maps help make up for it. I was disappointed that the community is currently non-existent. It is new and only in beta, so I have hope that it will grow. There is one area I will not forgive the developers for, though. That area is the music. It was repetitive and annoying and I had to turn it off to stop myself from getting a headache.
Gunswords is not a bad game. It does suffer from a few downfalls, though. If you like turn-based combat, you will probably like the game a lot. Gamers who are usually not a fan of the genre may find their opinion changed. One Button Studio did a decent job with their debut game.
In GunSwords players build a squad using available equipment and fight other players in special arenas. By winning battles, players can gain ranks and ultimately become champions. The combat system in GunSwords is a powerful fusion of core turn-based features, such as hex grid, fog of war, fighter classes with unique roles, fine action points management, powerups, etc. These features were picked, designed, and balanced to provide the best possible player versus player (PvP) gameplay experience.
Strategic Fast Combat: Test your metal in original, well-balanced and unpredictable matches that range from 5-10 minutes.
Huge Item List: Customize your squad members with tons of class builds and a versatile and near endless item list. 17 types of weapons and spells are at your command including swords, chainsaws, shotguns, miniguns, rocket launchers, railguns, and more!
3 Classes: Set up your squads with swordsmen, gunners, and mages each with unique abilities.
Grinding Gear Games announced today that the highly anticipated action role-playing game Path of Exile will enter Open Beta on January 23. The game is currently in Closed Beta but has already raised over $1.8 million in crowd-funded support, with those supporters gaining early access to the beta. Act 3 of the Path of Exile story will also be unveiled, in which players will explore abandoned docks, markets, temples and sewers in the ruined city of Sarn to further uncover the dark truth of their exile.
OnRPG’s DizzyPW will be on location for a special press meeting on Monday the 14th to get an early look at this new content.
“We’re excited to have reached the point where we can finally throw open the doors and invite everyone in,” said Chris Wilson, producer for Grinding Gear Games. “We have one of the best and most supportive communities on the Internet, and their input has been invaluable in making Path of Exile what it is. We hope they’ll be delighted with all the new content.”
Current players have until the Open Beta to purchase the special in-game kiwi bird pet. The permanent pet is the national symbol of New Zealand and is exclusively available to Closed Beta players. Additionally, there will be no further character wipes once Open Beta launches.
Path of Exile was recently named “Players’ Choice Best Upcoming Game” by Indie DB. Over 78,000 readers voted in the awards.
A dark and deep action RPG
Build unlimited unique characters on a gigantic skill tree
Combine over 110 skill gems to create unique combat strategies
Explore a dark and gritty world rendered from a fixed 3D perspective
Download and play for free, but never ‘pay-to-win’
Explore randomly generated levels for extreme replayability
Craft weapons, magic items and even end-game maps to become more powerful
Cooperate or compete with thousands of other exiles in a persistent online world
Ascend online ladders in every game mode
Battle in PVP tournaments for worldwide recognition
Redbana today announced the launch of Granado Espada (formerly Sword 2) the free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) through the T3Fun.com gaming portal.
Redbana will take over publishing of the popular MMO, Sword 2, into its newest chapter of Granada Espada with major content updates throughout the title beginning today. The Granado Espada storyline leverages the 17th century Age of Exploration in Europe as the backdrop for explorers to embark in their conquest of the New World.
Players migrating from Sword 2 will be able to continue with existing characters and benefit from a Loyalty gift as a welcome from Redbana, including:
Master Explorer Pack : 40 percent speed up of experience speed and drop rate for 30 days, User can also enter forgotten dungeon
3 Master Cards : Enables users to level up to the master level immediately
Unique Medal : Special decoration on user’s account for loyal users that have stuck by Sword 2
Granado Espada’s multi-character control adds a layer of game play depth, challenging player strategy techniques by mixing and matching a party of three, choosing from several character class archetypes. This launch will also introduce some new features to the game, including:
New Characters: 14 Brand NEW Recruit NPCs
New Weapons: The most powerful “Strata Devil,” also has five accessories that can only be worn by masters and other weapons and stances
New Costumes and Armor: Including six types of Strata Devil Armor and RARE weapon costumes
New Maps and Missions: include the Secret Garden, Lucifer’s Castle, the Banquet Hall and Death Corridor in Lucifer’s Castle
A product of famed game developer, Hak Kyu Kim, creator of Ragnarok Online, Granado Espada’s dramatic visuals are complemented with dynamic and fast paced action and unique player vs. player battles, including a dueling system and the treacherous Baron Mode.
“Granado Espada is a re-birth of an incredibly immersive game,” said Jun Hyun Kim, CEO of Redbana. “Like all games to come under the Redbana banner, we are fully-committed to adding major content updates on a monthly basis. Our recipe for success in this market is to continue to give players rich and new content. This is a key element for a free-to-play game to not only survive, but to keep players happy and engaged.”
Granado Espada will be the flagship game for North America publisher Redbana. With an established office in Los Angeles, Redbana is committed to producing free-to-play games with updates based on subscriber feedback, analytics and business intelligence.
By Mohammad Abubakr, OnRPG Journalist
Recently I have not been playing many MMORPGs due to my tight schedule as a student. This has resulted in me playing a lot of RTS (real-time strategy) type games because they allow players to hop on and play without needing to grind any gear or levels. Naturally this led me to try out AirMech which turned out to be quite interesting. Read on to learn more about this new game.
AirMech or AirMech Chrome is an action real time strategy (aRTS) by Carbon Games that is played similarly to DOTA. Waves of creeps periodically spawn and march towards the enemy base in hope of destroying it but are often met by tower defenses. Alongside these creeps march powerful player controlled heroes to aid in this constant siege. The game is playable on your desktop either through Steam or a standalone launcher as well as through Google Chrome.
AirMech is not simply another skinned DOTA game as it offers many new changes and additions to the traditional DOTA style gameplay. Players pilot a mech capable of air and ground combat. While flying in the air, players will mainly be creating and positioning new units. Yes, that is right, it is a DOTA game with the ability to create and position units still intact!
There are different maps offering different game modes for all players with online and offline play. These game modes include classic mode, capture the flag and survival which can be played solo, co-op, or PvP. Classic is the simplest game mode and seems to be the most popular. Classic mode resembles the DOTA gameplay the most out of all the available game modes.
In this game mode players, either in teams or solo, fight alongside creeps hoping to destroy the enemy base. While in air mode, players can queue build orders for up to four units at a time out of the many available. These units can then be lifted with the air mech and placed anywhere players deem to be tactically advantageous. Units vary in cost and build time requiring players to carefully manage their resources. This is also very important because if the player’s own mech blows up, it will only respawn if resources are available.
While all units can be used to push or defend, only ground soldiers are able to capture bases. The bases are controlled using a simple system that allows control over bases if four soldiers from the same team enter the base in a row. The AI behind this system needs to be improved as I have found that simply parking a tank in front of base entrances makes it impossible for soldiers to enter the building.
The second game mode, capture the flag, is pretty self-explanatory. This game mode still includes the ability to build your own units but the main goal is to capture the enemy orb and bring it back to your own base. Every time this is done the enemy base loses 1/3 of its HP, meaning three captures result in a win. Capture the flag or CTF does not seem to be very popular as the queues seem to take forever. This is understandable though for a beta game with only around 200 players playing at one time.
Finally I’ll discuss the final game mode, survival, in which players are forced to defend their base from waves of enemies. It is very simple to begin playing but also provides a lot entertainment; definitely a mode not to be overlooked! The AI controlled waves of units start out easy but increase with difficulty as the game progresses. They aim to destroy your base while you are trying your best to keep it alive. This simple yet very fun game mode has got to be my favourite game mode in the game mainly because I play AirMech alone. I could see the other game modes being more entertaining if playing with at least one other friend.
Talking about playing with friends, the game offers a lot of customizability for all players allowing them to build a team of mechs and units that work together. I was rather taken back by the number of customizable aspects of the game as I did not expect a game playable in the browser to offer so much, especially this early in its release!
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Players are able to customize their pilots which give bonuses ranging from unit repair rate to XP bonuses. There are a decent number of pilots available to choose between allowing for players to experiment for quite a while in an attempt to find one that matches their play style.
Along with various pilots, many different types of mechs are available to prevent the feeling of being locked into a traditional MMORPG class system. Mechs are easily swappable depending on the player’s mood or team members’ preferences.
My favourite area which is customizable is the unit load out. Players will not simply be restricted to building the same structures and units as each other, resulting in some dynamic and unique matches. Since the number of units in a load out are limited, players are forced to weigh the pros and cons of each unit based on their team composition and play style. A good mix of units can have a massive impact on the game.
While the customization options available are great, I am not happy to see non-cosmetic items being locked to players unless purchased. I am against the idea of a strategy game providing advantages to long time players or even players with a fat wallet as these items can be purchased with in-game or micro transactions. A game which focuses on the player with a better strategy coming out on top should not give an advantage to players with access to better items. We have all seen games thrive with revenue generated from only cosmetic items; AirMech should try the same.
The graphics are impressive for being playable in a browser. They might not be very realistic looking but the art style matches the tone of the overall game. The desktop client supports very high resolutions with nice options such as anti-aliasing to get the most out of its aesthetics.
The controls can be hard to get used to but over time I had become accustomed to them. At first I was not a big fan of the way units are controlled, created and positioned but once I learned all the hotkeys, the controls did not seem so bad.
To conclude, AirMech is definitely a game to check out and worthy of MMOHut’s Best Browser Award in 2012. It takes a unique approach to the traditional DOTA gameplay for an innovative and overall surprisingly fun game. While it is not a game which pulls me in leaving me wanting to play it all day, it is fun to play every now and then.
It needs to offer more to its players; some experimentation to find that hook that keeps players coming back again and again could push this game mainstream. The game is still new so hopefully we will see improvements in the future.
Neverwinter reveals the Great Weapon Fighter as they smash their way through foes with epic swings and spins.
By MerryQuiteContary, OnRPG Warcraft Reporter
Since the beginning the World of Warcraft hunter has been the most maligned class of the original classes introduced in 2004. There have been, throughout the years, several memes within the WoW community concerning hunters such as “blame it on the hunter” or “every weapon is a hunter weapon”. To be fair, there was a time when a hunter could use almost any weapon. Whether they should use them or not was open to debate. If someone was going to ninja something it was almost assuredly a hunter (supposedly). While not politically correct, hunters even have their own nickname of huntard.
I believe one of the reasons for this hunter hate, at least in the beginning, was that the hunter was very often played by young people and/or novices to gaming. They, almost invariably, lacked situational awareness which is paramount for a hunter; this is especially true for a hunter in control of a pet. So inevitably cases of pets not getting dismissed when the player needed to jump down, therefore aggroing the entire instance, were commonplace. Not turning off growl was another common mistake but mostly it was just lack of understanding the dynamics of the pet class that led to hunter abuse.
But it wasn’t all bad in classic WoW for the hunter. A hunter with tranq shot was much sought after. The hunter also was needed for certain pulls in dungeons and raids. But the thing that added to the ridiculousness of the hunter during classic and into TBC was that so many of them were named a variant of Legolas. How many male night elf hunters with long white hair could one game possibly have? The answer would be a lot. Hunters were the second most played class. That is a lot of Legolas.
The hunter class would have had taken direct influence from Tolkien no matter when it was introduced to MMOs or going further back, MUDs. Across multiple games they all have similar features but it was quite possibly WoW who introduced the hunter pet as its predecessors used pet-less hunters/rangers. Being able to tame a pet is one of the highlights of the class. Those that play hunters will spend days camping spawn points for a certain rare pet. There are websites dedicated to helping the hunter find the perfect pet with whatever stats and abilities the hunter is looking for.
Almost all MMOs have a hunter type class. The LotRO ranger is a master of long range with the bow but equally as adept with sword and relies heavily on trapping. The EQ2 ranger is a lot of kitting and trapping as well. There are AAA title games that came after WoW such as Rift that have essentially copied WoW’s hunter. Others such as Warhammer Online, Age of Conan and Aion are pet-less. The Guild Wars 2 ranger is not much different than the WoW hunter other than the ability to weapon and pet swap. Even the Quick Shot ability is similar to the much improved disengage for WoW hunters. By and large, most games stick to the Tolkien version of the ranger as inspiration rather than the pet enabled hunter.
The World of Warcraft hunter has seen so many changes over the years. Possibly more than any other class if the forum rage after a nerf is to be believed. Though if we are completely honest, the title of most changed would likely go to the warlock. Until just recently hunters could equip multiple weapons and dual wield. The change to them only being able to equip one weapon and hopefully that weapon is a bow or gun of some description has been one of the best things done to the class. There was a time when there was ammunition and quivers meaning the hunter had to stock up on arrows or bullets. Raise your hand if you can remember a hunter running out mid raid. Doing away with ammunition was another welcome hunter change. Right before Cataclysm with patch 4.0.1 most classes changed in their mechanics. For example, certain spells were now procs or the way resources were used was changed. The hunter went from being a mana user to a focus user, which was generally well received. The changes have continued right up to Mists of Pandaria.
Even though there has been a lot of changes with the hunter and in fact all WoW classes, one thing is certain; hunters are still fun to play. I would go so far as to say they are the most fun to play. On the surface they seem an easy class. Send pet in and shoot stuff. There is that yes, but there are many intricacies to the hunter class that good hunters are all too familiar with. Maybe the perceived ease of the class and failing to delve further into it by the early player base is what contributed to the hunter’s bad reputation. Whatever the case, the hunter/ranger in any game is usually a lot of good fun to play with high soloability yet still very good in groups in the right hands. For me though, the WoW hunter will always be my favourite.
