I'm sure plenty of people will also deny that BHO belongs as high on my list as it placed, but Bounty Hounds holds a special place in my gaming heart -

"Few people seem to remember the PSP Bounty Hounds from 2006, as it was plagued with control and camera issues and tanked in sales despite its stellar presentation. I have always thought of it as a personal cult classic, as I managed to overlook its flaws for the sake of its above average story and RPG-esque gameplay. Even so, I never expected Namco to resurrect the IP in 2011 as a free-to-play MMORPG, and a pretty good one at that.

I am currently playing in the closed beta, and considering the dozens of F2P games I've tried in recent years, I have been impressed with the overall product. It doesn't really break any new ground, but it contains many of the features that made the PSP version enjoyable - solid presentation, beautiful visuals, a consistent artistic direction, and fairly deep character progression. In many ways, it reminds me of Forsaken World, except of course its sci-fi theme, but its visuals and auto-nav feature are quite similar. Menus convey a large amount of information and upgrade options without being cluttered or confusing, and combat is strangely enjoyable. Experience rates also seem pretty high, though they might be drastically increased for closed beta acceleration, and considering the high level cap of 60, it could still prove to be a grind in the later stages.

I was actually surprised and impressed with the amount of background information and story that was carried over from the PSP title, since its unlikely that many players will recall previous events anyway. If you don't know, Bounty Hounds is in the same UGSF universe/timeline as Namco's Galaxian, Star Luster, Ace Combat 3, New Space Order, and Starblade (which might sweaten the deal for some of you classic gamers). However, the game is developed by XPec, a Taiwanese company, and not Namco proper, but with one of Japan's greatest publishers supporting it, Bounty Hounds might manage to make more of an impact on the F2P subgenre than it did on Sony's portable platform. Oh, and Subagames is publishing the MMO in North America, and while Suba may not be the strongest contender on the market, BHO is definitely a smart acquisition. If only their portal site did a proper job of matching the game's high production standards...

Anyway, I recommend snagging a beta key and giving the game a shot. You might enjoy it more than you expect."