Building up a community, a city or even an entire nation has long been yesterday’s news for online gamers. The logic behind the whole thing has always been “the bigger, the more modern-like, the better”. However, when things like skyscrapers and factories encroach on every piece of the land and finally squeeze us out of space, we begin to desperately ask for all the basics in life, such as fresh air, water and a clean environment at large. Well, it’s after all not too late to go “green”. From now all, Greenopolis will take the planet over and help you to reshape the “Metropolis” into an ecological-friendly and sustainable “Oceanopolis”!

Kiss goodbye to the foggy cities, the filthy living habits and all those facilities where the suffocating air/water pollutants come from. Cause Greenopolis has found us the last piece of inhabitance which hasn’t yet been nibbled up by wastes. A small island girdled by oceans, that’s the place where the new “Noah’s Ark” chooses to land for a brand new beginning of human being. Apparently, you are now among the few selected ones to together have this “green” chapter opened for the virtual family of gamers and their generations yet to come.

When the ties with modern life suddenly all got severed, it could be tough to get along well at the very outset. Electric power, drinking water, food, and all that we used to take for granted so much now have to be reproduced in a way not troubling our island, and of course, the oceans that surround us. Lean on renewable energies instead of fossil fuels for power generation; purify water straight from the ocean for a sustainable supply, and rework the litters into new materials for a recycled way of living. Having fed up with a polluted city life, from this moment on, keeping things clean becomes the priority of all.

There are more for you to take care of than your own inhabitance here in Oceanopolis. Check out those adorable aquarium creatures beneath your feet. Don’t you catch that sadly begging look on their faces? Oil spills, industrial emissions and trashes has made the ocean not a pleasant home any more. As a human, Will you stand by while these poor animals are being pushed to the verge of extinction exactly by you kind? If the answer is no, then Oceanpolis will be the starting point for making things up.

Features:

Oceanopolis, the new ecology-themed social game from Greenopolis, allow gamers to do much more than ever possible in other similar titles to remake everything in the green mold.

Through the strategic, immersive and highly interactive gaming experience here, environmental protection becomes so much fun that more would like to give it shot than otherwise.

Our homeland has been in such a mess and it’s high time to do some serious clean-up. Pitch in and let’s together help Greenopolis out!

Learn more browser games at www.playbbg.com

There are two sides to choose from, the antagonists which are the Decepticons and the protagonistsm, which are the Autobots!

This browser based game requires members to strategically build and develop their bases, with the option to create or join a tribe where they can fully interact with their fellow team mates.

TransForce is a game that is fun and easy to play during the quiet moments during your day, and with the growing number of players joining this popular game, the world of TransForce is indeed an exciting place to be!

1. Like all Free to Play games this game has a ‘Cash Shop’ but what I have found is that you can get massive amounts without ever spending a dime. This allows you to build stuff like the level 15 Headquarters for 27 matrix instead of waiting 448 hours.

2. You start with limited area to build Inside and Outside buildings. However as you level up your Headquarters you gain BOTH one inside AND outside area. (this is only partially unique.. In Evony every time you upgrade your ‘hq’ building you gain ‘Outside’ spots.. but your inside starts at the number you will keep forever.)

3. Expedition quests: These quests give you a sort of ‘Storyline’ for the game. They start at level 1 difficulty and work their way up to level 30 difficulties. The rewards increase as you do more of them. So those are the three features I have found stand out and be Unique to this game.

Now for the Pros and Cons.

Pros:

Daily reward for logging in

Both inside and outside building spots grow as you upgrade.

Game has options for SIMULTANEOUS building instead of QUE building, which makes for faster growth.

Game is easy and fun to play even for people who enjoy but do not consider themselves fans of the Transformers franchise(like me)

Expedition quests are a really good idea to add to this game.

Cons:

The game does not have Auto Refresh abilities: What this means is that I joined an Alliance and I had to refresh the page to get it listed. Also it took about a day for the game to catch up so I can ‘chat’ with my alliance.

Resources are really slow to produce in the start of the game(this doesnt count quest rewards)

Autobots and Decepticons can both hear each other over World chat.

Autobots and Decepticons can form alliances between tribes.

(For realism sake, this should not be allowed.. we are 2 separate factions.. and bitter enemies of each other……..So we should NOT be allowed to ‘rub shoulders’ except when in conflict on the battlefield.)

I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head.

So in conclusion:

User Interface(How newbie friendly the game is): 9/10( as long as you read the quest information it will solve most problems, I find in most games it is the people who don’t bother to read that end up asking the dumb questions)

Addictiveness(how likely a player is to play more than 1 week):6/10 I say this because I look on the map around me and there are tons of inactives. Also, the game may have too slow of a start for many people.

PVP: I am guessing it will be average but i will be nice and give it a 7/10.. i have not entered this area of the game yet so I can’t really judge

Economy: The economy seems a good way to jump start your growth if done right. 9/10

User Interface 9/10

Addictiveness 6/10

PVP 7/10(Assumption only)

Economy 9/10

Overall 7.75/10

Sound / Music

Unlike other music of social games on facebook, City of Wonder gives users a mysterious and melancholy feel instead of jaunty and merry beat. If you ever played Egypt Expedition, you may be very familiar with City of Wonder’s music and get used to it like your hometown, or countryside music.

GamePlay:

No matter how hard the social gaming companies work, they cannot throw off the predetermined, Habitual or established practice, that is, make a little change based on the already-surfaced codes, which is evidenced by Verdonia, and social City. To be simple, you will be given some social options to construct and build the key buildings that will help you keep people or citizen comfortable and agreeable. By ruling the citizens, you will let me do some social activities, like research, interactive, military, and diplomatic affair.

I am a big fans of browser games , so I’d like to have a full screen game to play in my web browser, not in the limited room, which makes me feel crowded, short of being massively multiplayer.

Graphics:

the majestic and magnificent scenes tweet a lot of browser-based MMOPRG games, like Evony, Three Kingdoms, and WW2 Warfare, however, these games takes on the adult’s interest instead of City of Wonder’s Mytical and athletic comic styled graphics and artworks. From the ingame tutorial guide, to the city’s infrastucture, to the heroes, they all look uncanny, yet engaging, charming yet devious. Chances are, that is dedicatedly tailored to Facebook Player’s needs. In a word, I love the graphics and they do contribute a lot of innovations to the game.

Virtual Items:

City of Wonder follows the basic Asian MMORPG’s payment mode through which players are required to spend real money on gaining some ingame featured items that would boost and speed up player’s city building, research, fighting power, and ultimately let players become a genuine lord. Such free to play, yet micro transaction payment model had a bad rap in recent years, especially for those who are fond of playing World of Warcraft, City Heroes and Age of Canon. In pay to player’s words, free to play games are nothing but crappy more than any other games.

Conclusion：

This is one of the amazing games in my recent memory. The loading screen reminds you of driving a carriage, and struggling to charge forward or escape. But once you login the game, you will be fascinated by the ingame music and animations. The detailed and well designed interface and tutorial would never let me get lost in the game. It is a very addicting game that would qualifies the best facebook social game in 2010.

Below are some testimonial ecerpted from Facebook Review page.

Shitty game. Everything requires diamonds, which is their version of game cash. I completed offers for diamonds, didn’t get creditted one diamond. Been waiting 5+ days. No help from creators either. Not worth the time anymore. Don’t waste yours either!

interesting and cute but the diamonds which require real money are far too demanding. Need to spend much time for preventing gold and tourist lose.

As a fan of Facebook, I will play any game on the Facebook. Dream Isle~ a nice name. Maybe I will have a wonderful dream in the game. And according to the pics of this game, girls may like it very much.

As we found, this game is nothing but a strategy game called Rock Age’s sceond version under the different skin. The ultimate goal of this game is to spend money on it.

Look! You need to build your home, and upgrade your facilities. Oh, this is what My empire and Rock Age takes on. Could we call this game as a city building game?

I will also quickly explain why I am posting questions about endgame this early into the game. I bought jewels since I like this game and dont mind paying to support the makers if that gives me a benefit in speed. Noone likes waiting 1day for something to complete when you can finish it in 1 hour.

I now have 4 lvl 3 workshops, Tavern, Magic Shop, Thiefs Hideout and a Cathedral. My residence is currently a villa and my office is the Bishops office. Im saving for the Count title and the Castle upgrade, which cost 250k each. Count title first, go for mayors office, and then get the castle. To earn money, I produce stacks of 50 of the following items, in round about 24 hours on average: 50 Vodka + 50 stout in Tavern, 50 Wands in Magic Shop, 50 Poison Daggers in Thiefs Hideout, and 50 Letters of Indulgence in Cathedral. The costs on average lie around 20k purchase from market, and 10k production, and earn me around 100k. This is for wands and poison daggers. The alcohols and letters earn about half. I used all my AP spread between getting all 9 trades to level 3, in case I ever want to change a workshop and for the achievement, and getting my skills to 20 for now.

Thats about all I do in the game, and even though theres still stuff to look forward to, like getting prince title, palace, fighting other guilds over the feudal lords office etc, everything seems to have slowed down… That may be logical for a browsergame you say, but think of Gameforges other successfull browsergame, Ikariam. This game also slows down in the building process, but you can still pillage the whole day. Theres still enough to do to keep you busy in between waiting.

Europe1400 on the other hand has now become a thing for me where I log in once a day, sell all produced goods, start new productions, and thats about it. The building enhancements that are quite fast if you bribe with jewels (1 hour max), might be something to keep you looking at the game, but ive got most important ones now, and am saving the gold for the title and residence upgrades because I want more rep.

So this got me wondering. I wonder if there are other people that are feeling the same about this, and im also wondering if Gameforge is aware of this (probably they are) and I wonder what their ideas on this would be. Maybe some people reading this have played on test servers or beta or german version or something and know what the next step is in this game?

Will this become a game where in the end you dont need to extend and enhance buildings anymore since you maxed them out? Will all our skills and rep be on 100 and will this become a game of politics? Kidnapping, starting inquiries, threatening, gathering evidence of criminal offenses and taking people to court? Fighting over offices via politics? Or destroying workshops and attacking and stealing as much as we can, and the rest focusing on getting max attack and theft enhancements?

Theres just something im missing. For example I would also like some of the temporary effects to be more permanent. To be able to spend a week crafting a piece of gear that would stay for a few months, like clothing eventually needs to be replaced, but not after just a few hours. I can make you this really cool super evil poison dagger, its the highest quality craftsmanship, but… It breaks after about 1 day when the temporary bonus expires.

Oh well This is still a young game and server, and I guess who knows what might happen, plus theres still the city quarters that Gameforge has yet to do something about, theres just nothing there, and im pretty sure there will be something there in the future. Maybe innkeepers with their pubs and taverns will really get their workshop visibly present in their local towns pub quarter etc… Interesting.

So, Im curious. What do you think about all this? And are you someone who already knows what the endgame is like? From experience on german servers or test servers or something? Id like to share some ideas.

Contibuted by myai

a) firstly, buying, selling, and making things in the workshop is very repetitive. You should be able to employ a manager, where you decide what you want to produce and the AI keeps producing them until you run out of space.

b ) it doesn’t seem possible to cause anyone any significant harm. At worst they might get thrown in jail for a short while, or lose their office, or their stock confiscated, or their buildings damaged, but really nothing significant that they won’t be able to quickly recover from. Any enemies you make and bring down will very shortly be back to haunt you. These will take the form of ongoing feuds, that never end…

c) Once you have a high state office and 4 workshops, there is nothing really to aim for. You can always improve your stats, and earn more money, but without something more significant to try and achieve, it quickly becomes pointless.

Nothing quite like a romantic sunset to accompany a naval battle

I admit this is hardly the most important aspect of the spiritual successor to East India Company, but considering the game will revolve almost entirely around water, whether you’re sailing through it, trading across it, or fighting on it, it’s reassuring to know that Nitro Games have gone to the effort to make it look as realistic as possible.

Set between the year fifteen hundred and the mid eighteenth century just before the War of Independence, Commander is a complex trading game with a smattering of realistic naval battles thrown in for good measure. Players will be tasked with stamping their Imperial authority on the area spanning from the Hudson Bay to mid-South America through a mixture of creating successful colonies, constructing lucrative trade routes and crushing the competition, either with diplomacy or a full broadside of grapeshot.

The Grand Campaign will begin with the player choosing one of six European countries with Imperial aspiration, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of playing style. Feeling suitably patriotic I chose to play as Britain, who start with more available colonists than other countries, but these colonists have a lower overall morale.

Regardless of which country you pick, the initial step of each campaign will be to found your first colony. I decided upon Florida as a general starting area, as it is roughly in the centre of the Americas and therefore ideal for Imperial expansion both to the North and to the South. Founding a colony is a straightforward matter of filling your ships with wannabe colonists at your home port, clicking on an available colony spot and dispatching your human cargo onto the land.

However, choosing the right colony involves more than the location. Near every colony are rich deposits of raw materials which vary from place to place. These can be bought from the colony by your ship’s captain before being taken back to your home port to sell at premium prices. My starting colony – named Bull Harbour – was rich in silver ore, which sold for roughly three times the asking price once it had been transported back to London.

No self-respecting colony is complete without a rum distillery

It’s clear that the early stages of the campaign will involve a routine of depositing colonists at your starting colonies and then transporting raw materials back to your home port. At this point I did feel somewhat concerned by the pace of the game. With only a few available ships transporting colonists is a relatively slow process, and after founding two colonies you need one with a population of five thousand before you can found a third. You can of course build more ships, but they are expensive and will quickly empty your coffers if you are not careful.

Yet Nitro Games are ensuring that there is significantly more to the game than simply setting up a pan-Atlantic taxi service. To begin with, there is the ability to set up automatic trade-routes, which will allow the player to let the computer do the more mundane tasks while you get on with exploring the New World and expanding your already established colonies. Constructing new buildings such as Mission HQ’s, Churches and better Warehouses will expand your individual colony’s local influence and potentially enable access to more valuable resources. Additionally, it will also help you appease your advisers.

The advisers are intriguing aspect of Commander. Coming in Religious, Diplomatic, Trade and Military guises, they act as both an in-campaign tutorial – negating the need for tedious tutorial levels – and more importantly, mission dispensers. Your religious adviser, for example, might ask you to build more churches, whereas your military adviser might request more warships. Keeping in good standing with your advisers will play a key part in creating a successful trading empire, especially since upsetting one too much will result in game over.

Although it’s likely that most of your time will be spent in the campaign map, it is inevitable that you will run afoul of one of your competitors. At this point, the game switches to a battle-map similar to that seen in Empire: Total War, where your ships will duke it out with those of the enemy. The comparison to Empire is apt, as these battles seem to play out in a similar fashion to the naval conflicts present in the Creative Assembly’s game, down to the three types of shot that your cannons can fire (ball shot, chain shot and grape shot).

Having said that, Commander’s battles appear to be more streamlined, with a few simple formations and modes of attack. Additionally, depending on the prowess of your Commander, you will have access to certain special abilities such as Kill Shot, which enables you to immediately unleash a devastating cannon barrage on your opponents. These special attacks give Commander’s naval battles some individuality, and may be the solution to certain criticisms that East India Company’s naval battles were boring.

In addition, battles can be played out in three different modes; Fast, normal and simulation, which should further alleviate those monotonous waits for your ships to catch up with a fleeing enemy vessel. Nitro Games clearly have confidence in their naval battles, as they can be played separately from the Grand Campaign in Quick Battle mode.

Not what you want to see coming at you first thing in the morning

Whether Commander: Conquest of the Americas will be individual enough to distance itself from Empire or East India Company is still up for question, especially since the preview code seemed relatively complete. But there are definitely unique touches present in the build, particularly the colony system. Commander is certainly looking to be a solid strategy game, but we’ll have to wait for the release to see if it turns out to be spectacular.

Commander: Conquest of the Americas will be released on 30th July for PC.

Character Creation

This is the first game that I’ve know that has a cast of precreated characters interacting together on the character selection screen. Although you don’t seem to be able to customize a character yourself, there is a large selection for a free to play MMO. I really like the visual style of this game. The characters each seem to have a great deal of personality, and tons of charm. Except for the crazy monkey looking guy, he’s just creepy. I chose a Western looking gal (since she was closest to what I look like) And continued on with the process.

Classes

Classes are represented by their respective icon in the character creation process, something that indicates what talisman they will play with. I was given the choice between eight classes: Vajira Guardian, Blade Warden, Fire Mage, Divine Enchanter, Raksha Warrior, Master Summoner, Stormlord, and the bell-wielding Dark Revenant. After reading through the descriptions, I selected Master Summoner, as it sounded the most well-rounded and the most interesting to play.

Little Mandifesto was born, and then the game started in earnest, with a lovely fully rendered cutscene that shows off each of the character classes in action – and more creepy monkey kids.

Questing

Questing is fairly fluid in Zentia, with virtually no grinding required at least at the lower levels. I appreciated how the quests connected one hub to another, which many free to play games don’t bother to do. Throughout the quests you get a sense of the humor in Zentia, especially when fighting the lower level monsters. On first impression, the quests kept me interested enough to read the quest text most of the time, and for the most part the localization was solid when I did read through the offerings. Zentia also features a quest tracking system, much like many modern F2P games, and an easy to understand quest log – both highly important elements in an MMO.

One thing I’ve noticed that I haven’t yet seen in other MMOs is the Ascetic Taoist. This little feller will pop up to assist you if the game believes your current mission is a little too tough for you. I’ve had him spawn a couple of times, but in both cases I didn’t feel his help was needed. I mean, I can’t even chat with him between demon kills. I imagine it might be useful for harder quests to have an NPC party member join you when you don’t have a group. Perhaps when the game development continues they will make the Ascetic Taoists more meaningful.

Pets & Mounts

Pets and mounts are available very early on in Zentia. I received my first pet at level 4, and my first mount after doing a certain quest chain I happened to finish at level 9. The pets, beyond being a little cheeky, also give you bonuses so long as they are out, and allow you to take advantage of autopathing to a zone or NPC. I thought this was a clever use of the autopathing mechanic. Sure we’ve seen it before, but I like that it’s handled in a novel way.

Once I reached level 10 I was given a quest to learn how to tame my own pets. The taming system required a little getting used to, and reminded me more than a little of UFOs rather than arcane magicks. When your pet reaches the appropriate level, you can send them off to train up. I imagine they go through little pet boot camps, where they either crack or come out tougher and meaner on the other side. I’m not sure I want my little tabby cat to come out mean. It might affect our relationship.

Crafting

Crafting and Professions are my all time favorite parts of any MMO. Professions do exist in Zentia, but as far as I can tell, the materials are only available through the cash shop. As someone who loves this aspect of gameplay, I am disappointed that it is only an option if you choose to buy game currency. I would much prefer a system that allowed crafting for free, had me scavenge parts from mobs around the world, and then reserved only truly rare or novelty recipes to be sold through the cash shop. If I’m going to be forced to pay to play the part of the game I like most, I probably won’t play the game. Let’s hope this gets refined and/or changed before the game is released.

All in all, Zentia was fun. I loved the art style, and for a beta the game was incredibly polished. I look forward to seeing how the game progresses as it moves towards release. The closed beta just started July 8th, so if you’re interested in signing up for a key, head on over to the Zentia website and give it a shot. Chances are you’ll have as much fun as I did.

Overview: The fatigue system was something that definately caught my eye. You can only use a certain amount of fatigue a day ( each day it resets ). Think of fatigue as “extra” EXP, but in reality its a must, and its foolish to level without it. This system is obviously put in place to stop power leveling to level 40 and benefiting the casual gamer. Being a casual gamer, this was a plus. The game is heavily quest based, if done right, you’ll only have to grind a little at the late 30s. Allods adopted the classic, faction vs faction theme that many other MMOs have taken on. ( one of the main reasons it gets compared to WoW ). The two factions are The Empire, the “evil” side and The League, the nature loving, tree hugger faction. Now to get the review started.

Graphics: 9/10: Loved the graphics. Very crisp and well done, armor and weapons are well detailed. Places are very distinct and interesting. A lot of thought went into the graphics in Allods and enhances the experience to level 40. Skill animations are near perfect and very interesting to watch.

Music: 9/10: Good music nowadays is hard to come by in an MMORPG, in Allods the music is actually very ear pleasing and not as redundant as a lot of MMOs at there. Whether it be eerie music in a dungeon or a nice wooden fiddle in the woods, the music makes you feel amersed in the world of Allods.

Customization: 7/10: Customization has never been that big of an issue for me in MMOs, hair and face styles always seem to look very similar from a distance, and in Allods that doesnt change. The game gives several options of changing hair, hair color, height, and added features, like earings etc.

Community: 8/10: The community at lower levels, like most MMOs, is immature and annoying. As you level, however, you’ll notice a drastic change in the community and its refreshing. The community is VERY helpful, the higher level players don’t hold themselves above you and most likely help you if you ask them for help. The GMs hold random and scheduled events often and are, most the time, helpful.

Class/Races: 8/10: Theres eight classes in Allods, all VERY distinct from one another, each with their own unique spin on their mechanics. There are six races in all in Allods, three specific to the league, Humans, elves, Giberlings, and three specific to the Empire, Orcs, Artisians, and basic humans. Certain classes are limited to certain races. Each race has their special “race skill” unique to their race. For example, the Orc Warden obtains a skill that allows them to share damage with their pets, while Kanian Wardens obtain a fear spell for their pet. Unfortunately, like in most MMORPGS, the more classes you have the more room there is for balance issues, Allods is no exception. The game is based off a system that every class has an advantage over 3 other classes, sadly it doesn’t work like that. Healers are the most overpowered class in Allods and with the new patch arriving nothing seems to be changing for them. Wardens remain and will remain the most underpowered class in Allods. I guess thats what drove me to pick the warden class to hit lvl 40 with.

PVE: 7/10: The instances in Allods are harder than their recomended levels. The first instance League players will experience, is one called Oreshek and is advised to do at level 10, by the game anyway. Sadly you can’t form a party full of level 10s to run the instance. Most poeple wil find a higher level player to run instances for them since running them the way their supposed to be is just near impossible and time consuming. The quests in Allods all follow a well developed story line and if the player takes time to read the quests they can actually be very entertaining and even sad.

PVP: 5/10: The reason I gave it a 5/10 was simply because of the balance issues and the horrible ganking of higher lvls on lower ones. At lvl 22-24 the player will travel to an allod named, Asee Teph, where its an open pvp leveling zone so is every zone after Asee Teph. Sadly this “questing zone” is full of level 40 players running around looking for some even lvl pvp and don’t have a problem wacking a lowbie aside if they come across one. Natural right? The problem begins when the higher levels only purpose for being there is to kill people ~18 lvls below them. The pvp system in Allods is rather garbage in my opinion. The player cannot be attacked if his/her Flag of War is off, simple right? Wait…Allods offers a system of warbanners. Warbanners randomly drop off monster kills and when raised, gives you a dmg increase and allows you to attack players of the opposite faction whether or not their flag is on or off. When you see a warbanner its advised to stay away from it, its most likely a lvl 24 player with a lvl 40 escort. It can be very annoying since the warbanners can be stored in your inventory for a short while. The other issue with pvp is the class balance issues. Allods is VERY dependent on gear, more so than most MMOs. A newly lvl 40 simply can’t take on a even half way geared lvl 40. I don’t want to rant about the balance issues anymore than I have to, I hope you get the gist. Sadly the only way to “duel” people of teh same faction is to go the arena just outside the main cities of the main factions. Hardly anyone is ever there and when there are people there its usualy a guild just controlling the area and ganking other players.

Guilds:8/10: I gave it a high eight for being very useful and open. Most guilds in Allods, contain higher lvl players who are just itching to help their guildies level up. I would highly advise finding a good guild to help you with the hard quests and raid bosses. I would personaly recomend the guilds League Pirates and The Silent Warriors ( Nezeb server ). I know for a fact leveling to level 40 would have taken a lot longer without higher level guild members helping me out.

The Cons of Allods Online

1. A game heavily focused endgame, on pvp, wont satisfy a pvper unless your willing to dump money into the Cash Shop.

2.Allods is plagued with technical issues that can sometimes be very frustrating. Graphic distortment, random disconections, trouble loging in, random characters being deleted, internal errors preventing one from seeing certain letters and numbers etc.

3.The lack of endgame content is obvious in Allods. I hope this will be changed in the future, but as of now, being level 40 can be very boring, unless you have a very active guild and are willing to stay online all day waiting for them to organize something.

4. Upon reaching level 40 I was dissapointed to find out that the top guilds on the server didn’t get their gear without glitching an instance or abusing bugs. Sadly the GMs seem to do little to adress this.

Conclusion: If your looking for a fantasy MMORPG that you can burn your time on for a month then sure play Allods. If your looking for something to be dedicated to and really get into, it would be best to look elsewhere. Cash shop balance in pvp makes it near impossible for someone without it to stand a chance. The current Fear of Death system can be expensive and with the arrival of the new patch, Cursed Items is another way for Gpatato to make more $$$. I decided to quit because all I play an MMO for is endgame pvp, sadly in Allods is lacking too much. I quit in the nick of time, because a few weeks after I quit, my lvl 40 warden and all characters off that server, disapeared. And the GMs did nothing to adress it. If you are a casual gamer who enjoys questing and progression Allods just might be your cup of tea, if your hardcore-ish look elsewhere.

First of all, I would like to compliment Danal Entertainment on the speed they tended to every single bug fix we reported. Things were submitted and dealt with during the duration of the closed beta instead of what the other companies do, which is leave it until the end of closed beta.

Secondly. I would also compliment Alaplayer. Although the gameplay offered was laggy, as Alaplaya is a European server opposing my American allocation, the server sustained the heavy load of CBTer’s around the world with playable standards (everyone wasn’t warping). Yes, this deals with the developer’s latency settings of a game (Danal), however; Alaplayer still needs to have a server to deal with their own latency. In this way, thanks to you both for offering such a wonderful experience…

So the game starts with two logos, Alaplaya and Danal, and off to the login screen. Inputting your username and password, it brings you to the lobby (or if its your first time to the hero creation). For now, the game offers 12 heroes each with their own unique set of abilities and equipment. The first thing I check in any game would of course be the options. Place them all in the highest setting, leave the music and sound to a listenable level, and check if you can remap keys. Fortuanally, you can.

So the game is what’s called an “instanced game” where you sit in a lobby and join games. In your lobby, you can goto the auction house and you can manage heroes, or even create a hero. It’s your homepage where you can talk to people when you don’t feel like playing a game or even spamming your trades.

As this game is advertised, it’s pretty much a play on DoTA. The twist is that it is a “TPS”(Third Person Shooter). With this in mind, it’s bound to be pretty different. Now that I’ve said DoTA, along with a store/auction house in the lobby, people might be wonder… wtf?

Well the game has a manage hero button which you get to equip your characters with items. Yeah yeah stay with me here. Each hero has their own equipment set at a certain level interval (1, 5, 9, 13, 17? I think that was it). Whenever your hero is that level in game, your set automatically switches off to the set you’ve made before the game started. This offers a nice twist, awarding people who have been playing for a while. Along with the shop for heroes, there is the traditional shop ingame which you can buy artifacts. One of each artifact can be held and only 8 items can be on you at any time. Choose wisely what you need to defeat the enemy.

At first, people wouldn’t find a difference in their weapons. However there is also an upgrading system and socketing system. Each upgrade gives a weapon/armor more attack/defense respectively and sockets apply special enchantments into the item (such as magical defense, physical defense, poison DOT and so forth). How do you get this? Wait for others to get it in the auction house or play massive amounts of games where the winner will be able to bid on an “epic” item shared between your teammates.

Anyhow, those can be looked into when you play. The chances are that if your reading a review, you’re looking for insight on the game itself and deciding whether or not you want to play it, not a guide on the game itself (which will be included in another post by the way)

There are currently 2 game modes and 3 maps, which I’m pretty sure 1 map is only for the other game mode. There is Battlefield and Annihilation.

Battlefield is your traditional DOTA game where one has to assault the opposing team’s base along with two obstacles that must be destroyed before one can get into their main base. Players can pay gold to globally upgrade the heroes through the training camp and produce giant weapons (after a 30 minute mark) to turn the tides of battle.

In Annihilation, the goal is to kill 30 players with your team of 1-5 players. That’s about it. You are given max level before the game starts and gold to buy your initial items.

The 3 maps offered are the Forest of Chaos, Crimson plains, and the Lair of the Great Dragon (pretty sure it isn’t great dragon. Ah well). Each offering its own field advantages and so forth. The game ends when you destroy the opposing team’s Headquarters and commander.

The Actual Review.

I put this game in high favor. And no, this isn’t any bias from me liking HoN or DoTa alike. They are great games, but you’re getting nowhere if you keep calling each game a x-clone. Hell, you can get away with saying WOW CLONE! Just because it uses WASD to move, and I think that’s just ridiculous.
+Support is pretty fast, responding in nearly a day or so. Maybe it was just because it was in CBT, but bugs were tended to with haste.

-One obnoxious “bug” that occurred is something called the “recall” bug, where if you use the recall (available every 4-5 minutes), you will become invulnerable and return to your homebase. This does not happen with any recall scrolls you buy. I suppose it becomes an element of the game.

+The game has a nice balance. People might say some heroes are OVERPOWERED, but I don’t believe that. There is a nice balance in which the players work around. And I hope Danal does not make the BIG mistake any other company would do, which is listen to players and “fix” heroes. (this will be gone over in the actual guide I will be writing)

-The tutorial scratched lightly on the extreme basics of the game … the rest is experience. Meaning newcomers will have an extremely hard time in the beginning.

+The game can be played by both casual players and “hardcore” players alike.

-Players often leave the game, leaving your team with 2v3… in plain words, Disconnections suck. And the penalty for it? The Dcer gets no reward that game and 1 mark on their name. There needs to be a bigger penalty since it pretty much gives the rest of your team a negative “LOSS” mark.

So what do I say in the end? I would recommend this game to anyone who like arena type games. There isn’t exactly any progression in any games though; so one might feel their efforts are wasted.

Playability 8/10

Why isn’t it 10/10 judging by my review? Just because the community is extremely lacking. The only thing available in chat is trade spams and other languages. There should be multiple channels at the very least (which I’m sure they will change in Open Beta since the only channel available is “ROOKIE”) along with how stupid some people can be ingame… Even if I instruct people I would be

Gameplay

For the most part, Atlantica plays like your stereotypical MMORPG. You get quests from a questgiver, you complete the objectives, and you return for a reward. Most of these quests are rather generic, and somewhat boring, but there are a number of things that make them less painful to complete than Atlantica’s competition.

Upon starting Atlantica, I got to create my character by choosing from a very limited amount of customization options, and then choosing my weapon (which would also determine my class). I was not at all impressed with Atlantica’s customization options and at this point, I was very concerned with the fact that I would only ever be able to use one type of weapon. Nonetheless, I picked up my spear and got on with it.

Once I got into the world of Atlantica, I was dropped into the tutorial where I would subsequently be sent back and forth to different tutorial NPCs to learn about different gameplay aspects, such as buying, selling, combat, and how mercenaries work. It was pretty standard fare, but as always, it’s necessary for that 5% that may have never played an MMO before. It’s also easy experience.

Mercenaries are pretty much just extra party members that are controlled by you, as opposed to another player. It would be wrong to call them NPCs, because you control everything they do, from what they have in their inventory to what items they use, to where they stand in formation, to what they do in battle. The best comparison would be to say if you had direct control of your team mates in an MMORPG.

Battle had me worried at first, and also thrilled, as it was something new. I was worried that it would somehow kill the game for me, but battle is actually probably Atlantica’s strongest point. Fortunately, due to the classic turn-based nature of Atlantica, there are no aggro enemies. Instead, you click on the representative enemy and then you’ll enter an instanced, turn-based arena with the monsters in that enemy’s party. From there, you get 15-30 seconds, depending on the amount of mercenaries you have, to make all of your moves. Contrary to my original belief, you can easily control each and every one of your mercenaries in battle, and as long as they’re up to the level you are, they’re easily as powerful or more powerful than you are. Spellcasting is made simple by use of the right click, and normal attacks involve simply clicking on a monster. An interesting point about battle that I found was that with weapons like spears and rifles, you could attack all monsters in a row, as opposed to just the one in front.

Other than battle, I found Atlantica to be repetitive and standard fare. The only saving grace was that, during quests, if there were 5 monsters in a group that you were fighting, you got credit for 5 monsters, as opposed to just one.

Graphics

Graphics in Atlantica are on par with other free to play titles. There’s really nothing all that extraordinary about them, and as I said before, I was a little put off by the lack of variety in character customization. Unfortunately, I later found out that that lack of variety also extended into recycled monsters.

Sound

Sound in Atlantica is exactly what you’d expect. Hit and miss voiceovers, noises that sound recycled from movies and video games that you’ve already seen and played, and a classic Oriental soundtrack to top it all off. When it works, it sounds great. When it doesn’t, you won’t really care all that much.

Other comments

There were quite a few things I didn’t like about Atlantica. First off, the game really doesn’t seem to have a higher goal. You mainly level up to get mercenaries, to level them up, to join a guild and wage war over cities for tax benefits. There’s no explanation for why you’re warring over them, you just are.

Second, as I said before, for everything unique about Atlantica, there’s at least three things that are standard fare and that still haven’t evolved in any way, shape or form.

Third, I really, really despise the inventory. Both you and your mercenaries share an inventory, but not really. You each have something like 20 inventory slots, and once one fills up, items are automatically placed in the next one in line. However, to get someone to use an item, that item has to be in their inventory and you have to have them selected. It just seems overly complicated, as opposed to simply dragging the item over their portrait and dropping it to use.

Fourth, I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but I really like to have the option to jump. Given that the inventory is mapped to the spacebar (what?), there isn’t any way you can jump in Atlantica. This is unfortunate, because I’ve used jumping for more than one purpose in the pase.

Fifth, I don’t mind the fact that the game is zoned, but I really don’t like the way that the zones are set up. From what I’ve seen of the game, all of the zones are tiny and are way too mountainous. It literally feels like you’re walking across a mountain a lot of times, and there isn’t much variation there. Also, with how small the zones are, it’ll be hard to find epic vistas in Atlantica.

Overall

Overall, Atlantica is a good ride for a short amount of time. A lot of people say the game really starts at level 95 or something like that, but I can’t see the vast majority of players actively playing until then. For each innovation Atlantica makes in the genre, it falls right back into the pool another 3 times over. There’s just not enough motivation to keep playing most days.

Final score: 5/10

Gameplay

Upon starting up Endless Ages, I logged in, went through the all too familiar loading screen and began creating my character. I went with amphibian, because I was most interested in their set of stats, as opposed to the other races’ (it’s interesting to note that human males and females are two separate races). Actually creating a character in Endless Ages leaves much to be desired. There are quite a few options, but many of them look either ugly or ridiculous, and it’s pretty obvious which pieces were meant to match with what, as there isn’t a whole lot of a mix and match factor if you want to have any color coordination. For me, the most interesting part of character customization was choosing whether I wanted one eye or two, and whether I wanted fins or not. Frankly, I was already a bit displeased, especially since I was watching my amphibian reflect light off of his low-resolution textured body, but I let it go.

After running the rudimentary tutorial and struggling with the interface for what seemed much longer than it was, I finally got dumped into another zone. Zones in Endless Ages are…well, they’re large…and pretty empty feeling. It just doesn’t feel like there’s all that much there. There are tons of mobs rolling and walking and flying around, but other than that, it just feels barren. It’s even worse at night.

Quests in Endless Ages are few and far between. Actually, I shouldn’t say that. Dependent on your level, quests are few and far between. Dependent on how long you’re willing to sit in a tree and shoot, unmoving, at the mob you need, you could go on until the quests run out. I really had a problem with this. The fact that the system could be overtaken that easily just seemed ridiculous. Not to mention, the game’s quests are so uninformative that by the time you’ve found what you need and completed a quest, chances are that you might have been able to grind more than what you got from the quests off of sitting in a tree and shooting at mobs.

Speaking of mobs, they’re dumb as rocks. Literally all they do is charge at you. If you happen to hide behind something they can’t get past, you’re safe. They’ll just sit there and charge you until they somehow die. They also lag all over the place, and hit detection is way off. I don’t know how many times I was running (hopping) backwards, shooting at a flob, when it would momentarily freeze up only to find out that it had jolted forward, rolling over me and killing me. Good thing you don’t drop items at early levels. Unfortunately, when you die, you have to equip everything all over again.

One thing I did find interesting about Endless Ages’ gameplay was the fact that jetpacks play a huge part in it. However, they also play a huge part in glitching it.

Another interesting part of it is that you level up skills, as opposed to your character. However, seeing as you only start with one skill and you don’t even have to use it to level it, the entire system was totally lost on me.

Graphics

The graphics are blocky, they’re crude, and they are in no way appealing to look at. I realize the game was released in 2003 originally, but with all the times it’s traded hands, no one could have simply taken the time to make more impressive graphics?

Sound

Sound is horrendous. By the 300th time you’ve shot your weapon, you’ll be wondering if it’s a laser gun or a futuristic squirt gun. Other than that, most sounds seem completely mistimed and often severely out of place.

Overall

Overall, this game just isn’t worth the time. A lot of people revere it for having great PvP, but seeing as it’s just arena PvP with jetpacks, I don’t really understand the draw. Even if I had lasted in the game long enough to reach a point where I was viable in PvP, I can’t say I would have enjoyed it. It had some interesting player housing features back in the day, but they’ve since randomly disappeared. Never have I been so appalled by a game as I have now. Even though they were a no budget garage team, I’m sure Aaron Boucher and his team could have been much better than they did.

Final Score: 2/10

Setup

Mortal Online’s setup process was so long and monotonous that I felt it required its own section. Upon starting up Mortal Online, you’ll be faced with what will most likely be a good 8 hours of patching. For me, it took close to 24 hours to patch the game entirely, and I’m still left with a bad taste in my mouth after that. You could easily go into your Mortal Online folder, open the torrents it uses in your favorite BitTorrent program and move on with life, but you’d still have to revisit the launcher after each patch to get the next torrent. You’d also have to manually patch the game, as opposed to simply letting the launcher do it for you.

Gameplay

Upon logging into Mortal, you’re faced with a character creation screen. You can have 5 characters, each entirely unique, and you can create and delete as many as you want without penalties. In fact, you may have to several times in order to find your favorite starter build and starting zone. Unfortunately, starter zones are now race locked, and you may not get your favorite combination like you could have in beta (I couldn’t get Toxai and be an Oghmir) but you’ll most likely not notice unless your starter area is just plain irritating.

Once you’ve chosen your race (as stated above, I chose Oghmir) and chosen your age (it actually affects stats!), you are faced with a few character customization options. Unles at the absolute extremes, other players may never notice any difference between you and the next guy other than hair style, but you can still do a little fine tuning and make it at least look good to you. To some people, that’s enough.

From there, you can place your starting attributes. You get something like 25 points to spread out over 10 or so attributes. Unfortunately, unless you want to start with a definite build, your efforts here seem all but useless, as you can easily train and detrain these attributes later on during actual gameplay. After that, you choose a specific class which defines your starting skills (again, pretty much useless, as you can learn just about anything else for a price by buying a knowledge tome) and defines how you’re going to be grinding for cash for the majority of your new game experience.

It should be noted that by this point it’s clear that the game is extremely NSFW, as your character is naked with full frontal nudity the entire time you’re creating him/her.

And so it began. I started as an Armorcrafter, mined some granum, and after exploring my skills, came to realize just how screwed up the newbie experience was. Thought you were confused before? Try to explain why you have mining and armor crafting, but not refining. Wait, what? At this point, I almost gave up in frustration (in the beta, you automatically had all skills, and you just had to put your extremely limited skill point pool into a skill to improve it), but I soldiered on. After spending half an hour mining granum (and yielding very little of it), I went to a vendor. Upon trying to sell it, another change became apparent to me. It’s not worth anything to vendors. Sigh. I now had to either craft my own armor and weapons with skills I didn’t have and sell them, or buy them with money I didn’t have from other players.

Back in beta, I had actually made it decently far in the game, but at this point in time, as a less hardcore player than Mortal apparently demands, I was completely lost. Without the skills I needed, I felt I was trapped.

It’s not like I really was missing much at this point in time, though. Once getting to a point where you’re viable against the PvE monsters, you can fight them (orly?) and, possibly, beat them. However, the PvE is a rather lacking experience and isn’t very rewarding at any point in time. There are apparently world bosses in the game, or still coming soon, but I was never able to experience them.

Other than that, you can either build, or you can fight other players. Again, other than the feeling of might some players get when destroying the property of others, or when killing another player, there’s really no reward or motivation for doing such acts. You can build yourself a nice little house, but I don’t really know if there’s all that much reason to, due to a lack of customization.

Graphics

The graphics are slowly getting better. They’re not stellar, but at least the textures are getting to the point where they’re all of high resolution. Other than that, the trees are of specific notablity, due to the fact that they’re absolutely horrendous.

The first person viewpoint, however, did feel very immersive. There was all sorts of motion blur, and even when doing mundane things like mining, chopping trees, or even attacking someone, the camera followed your character’s face almost faithfully.

Sound

There’s really not much sound in the game, and the sounds don’t change much throughout the game. After hearing the stepping noise for the thousandth time, or the swoosh of a weapon, or the chopping of wood, it might get a bit annoying, especially since there isn’t any background music. At all.

Community

The community is…well, to say it straight, the community, especially in the newbie areas, is absolutely horrendous. There are PKers, thieves, and even all sorts of people that “push” you to get you to attack them, then call the guards to kill you, and steal your stuff. There are schemers, there are loud mouths, and then there are the people that will ignore every plea for help just to advance their own agenda. I never once saw anyone really “friendly” even after saying “hi” to about two dozen people.

Value

Given that the game is European, and it’s not “re-priced” for people in the U.S., it has the enormously high price of $58. For some people, it could be worth it to relive the days of hardcore MMOs in a new place, with more modern graphics. However, for the rest of us, it’s just an overpriced indie game that probably should be a budget title. Even with a free month, it can’t come anywhere near competing with games like Xsyon, which will run you $40 for the client and 2 months of free play after release, as well as a unique item.

Overall

The game, like EvE in its release days, is very, very bare bones. There are only very basic systems in place and they’ve hardly been fleshed out to where they could be. It’s also easily just as confusing and, even in the later game, features very little direction at all. A lot of people are hoping this might be the next Ultima Online, or go the way of EvE, but it’s yet to be seen if it will even survive its first year. I’d be hard-pressed to say it will, though, seeing as the company has already had a few financial issues and the game was released in an inadequate state.

Final Score: 4/10

Having started in WW2 Warfare over a year ago, WW2 Assembly is obviously vastly different to WW2 Warfare. The first thing that is an obvious difference is the graphics in the game however, progressing through takes a lot of getting used to. It is a lot more complex compared to WW2 Warfare but has certain restrictions that WW2 Warfare does not have which is disappointing. The character limits are too small (I’m guessing it is a closed beta thing) meaning you can’t rename bases very easily or choose character names you want. You cannot attack players in your own nation. You need to advance substantially further in the game before building a second base. The same goes for creating an alliance.

However, on the plus side the game is more flexible, allowing players to play in their own way. Even a feature to instruct troops not to engage incoming armies attacking your base! There is also a loyalty bonus where the daily resources and tokens escalate for every consecutive day you login. The task system is a lot more flexible and allows you to choose tasks that will provide a bonus for upgrading your base as well as donating troops and resources in return for coins or different resources. Various other tasks exist as well and relate to your current soldier ranking. Research is completely different now. Rather than having a list of techs, you have an actual tech tree making it easier to understand for new players. There is also a facility for soldiers surviving a battle to bring back equipment of fallen comrades to be added back to the pool. Rather than just having Steel, Oil and Grain as resources, you also need to rely on Coins, Alloy, Fuel and Ammunition. Alloy, Fuel and Ammunition all come in 3 versions. This in some ways further complicates the game but also can act to slow the production of units by some players used to queuing up massive numbers of troops at once in WW2 Warfare.

In many ways, WW2 Assembly is very similar to Transforce (which I have been playing for about 3 months now), except that Transforce is a lot more polished and user friendly for the time being. Anyone who plays Transforce will know that queuing up troops will result in troops exiting the queue as soon as each is finished rather than waiting for all the troops to be finished. At present it is very easy to accumulate resources very quickly which can in turn take some time to use up.

In my opinion, there are some things needing to be tweeked still.

* Task system needs to be easier to use. It is currently difficult to follow and does not always respond when a task is completed.
* Bring back items relating to training and construction like what is available in WW2 Warfare and/or Transforce. Cutting specific times off queues is frustrating and overly expensive.
* Allow multiple queues to be ordered up for training from the same Barracks/Ordinance Plant/Airfield
* Not sure what is planned for Open beta but a special unit AND a special skill for each nation would be a good idea to properly distinguish between nations.
* Allow for players to choose to be part of a resistance/subversive movement which allows them to attack their own nation.
* POW Camp – if a battle is lost by an attacking force, allow troops to be captured and ransomed back to their owner through negotiation.

Oh Wait, That is not the case what Soul Order Online delivers, but a Chinese free to play mmorpg 仙魔OL that should have been thrown into debris generations ago.  The latest press release said SOUL Order Online is a full 3D MMORPG with best sound, and graphics supported by their Engine. I wish the game is the best ever and even no one else will supass them, furthermore, I wish this game is superior to World of Warcraft. Damn! You cannot attach the future of MMORPG  to Chinese developers. You know  the folks in China get to churn out Free to play (F2P) MMO games in bulk, and the result of this move is they all look and feel absolutely similar. For instances, Battle of the Immortals from Perfect World, Dragon Oath and Blade Wars from ChangYou, and Conquer Online and Eudemon Online from TQ digital Entertainment.

What am I saying when geting on Soul Order Online Reviewed:

1, Inconsistent Skill Casting:

How come my character released a skill, still like a stone. I do not think the developers are really intended to design and craft the game with care, but they gave their imperpect and defective portion throughout the game.

2  System Notice unconformable to Action

Combat and damage showed dissonant. We can clearly see the combat between monsters in the attack finished, but the damage can not be accurately displayed around or over the attaking target.  This case is particularly evident in the melee;

Sound/Music- Admittedly i was not expecting much here and i only had a bit of a positive on the music. Even though a tad bit repetitive in its neverending loop, it had some nice music in the back ground.  Each area has its unique soundtrack but all carries the boring old combat sounds and mob vocals. The skill sounds were okay, but were over shadowed by the bad mob sounds and some of the action sounds.

3 Graphics- Now this is not the game i would enjoy for its “2.5″ D view but i have to say it is refreshing from the 3D titles I’ve played. It’s colorful and engaging, and pretty detailed. Character faces are mannequins with not even a blink but have some details. Hair looks atrocious like in many games ive played lol but thats trivial. Mobs are reminiscent of movies ive seen (mummy series anyone?) and based in a myriad of cultures…egyptian, chinese, atlantean? yeah a bit made up but they made some mythology there.

4， Auto- Tracking

The auto-tracking setting means the Map disorder. That is the same to Soul Order Online. You cannot find your quest, and complete the goal of the questing if you do not use Auto-Tracking.

5, Upgradable Equipment

This is the most profitable protion of the game. All that you did is to pave the way to upgrade your equipment and pay for Gold and buy some Gem, Stone to upgrade your equipment and Armor, which caused an inbalanced game mechanism.

4 In fact, these problems can be classified as a technical barrier.

In a word. Soul Order Online is game in the 1980s, like Tale of Fantasy from IGG, battle of the immortals  – they all should be put in trash.

Caesary follows in the footsteps of other popular online free-to-play Asian strategy games like Evony. Here, the theme is one of Roman conquest and the art design for your budding Empire reflects this. Other than the visual style and occasional animal sacrifice, Caesary plays like an Empire-building game from any other era.

The first thing you will notice with Caesary is that the sheer amount of things happening on your screen. In the bottom left hand corner of the screen is your portrait and a half dozen stats about your city and account. In addition, there are four other buildings already built and active before you even click your mouse for the first time. Each of those pre-build buildings has an output displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen. The bottom right displays an intimidating number of it’s own stats and all of them are more important than anything else happening on the screen. Despite the “quest” system which tries to reward you with tutorial-like objectives, it’s quite a lot to take in at first.

While your little palace sits comfortably at the center of your town, it’s very easy to lay down a half-dozen buildings in various places without really understanding what any of them do. For example, on my first play-through I built too many cottages in the first five minutes of the game. Luckily, a new player can’t do too much damage to themselves by building the wrong structures because all the essential structures are already made for you. These pre-built buildings lay the foundation for your resource management system in the game. These buildings are the farm, sawmill, iron mine and quarry. Although all resources are neccessary, the farm and sawmill are far more important than the other two resources.

The pre-built buildings always tick away doing work, but it’s up to you as the player to upgrade them or create more jobs in order increase their production. However, you can not create as many jobs as you want or upgrade everything all at once. You can only train a handful of new employees or upgrade a couple buildings at a time. After you have done those two activities, there is simply nothing for you to do with your city until later. After the first day of playing when you can build a half dozen buildings at the same time, Caesary is all about only doing two things at a time and forcing the player to wait about fifteen minutes after doing anything.

In fact, this is the main design decision that you will notice if you have played other free-to-play Asian Empire-building games. Rather than encouraging players to que up a lot of actions and then wait until the next day to play again, Caesary’s game design highly encourages players to play absent-mindedly several times per hour throughout the day. This makes Caesary a great game to play secretly while you are at work, but a terrible game to play when you actually want to do more than two things at a time.

Players who choose to play at work will be grateful that there is almost no sound effects or music other than an innocent sounding chime when a building completes. No one will know you’re playing a game if there’s no sound right? Everyone else will be disappointed at the complete silence the game offers most of the time.

The eventual goal of all your city building is to invade your neighbors. During the first week of real-life time, you are safe to build as you like. After that time has ended you are vulnerable to invasion. If your city is invaded and you fail to defend it, you must pay a small tax to the player who defeated you until you can get your independence back. It isn’t an especially bad penalty for being conquered, but the benefit to the winner is much larger than the loss to the loser. This makes players relatively brave at attacking other players.

Both combat and city building are heavily effected by buff items which can be purchased for real life money or won randomly from sacrificing goats. However, these buffs never feel mandatory and most players don’t use them.

All of this is well and good, but Caesary has some problems that need addressing. While playing Caesary, I encountered several bugs. One bug allowed me to receive double-rewards for every quest I had ever completed. A design flaw allows one person with multiple free accounts to accumulate a much bigger army than anyone could with a single account. Another strange design decision is the requirement of real-life money to use the built-in chat room. The game actually rewards you with items for submitting opinions and bug reports, so we may see these flaws disappear in time.

Ultimately, Caesary is a game that will appeal to a small crowd of people looking for a distraction while multi-tasking. Caesary is truely free in that real-life money is not required to excel in Caesary but the game doesn’t offer enough engaging play sessions to warrent that patience.

The free action game Heroes in the Sky celebrates archaic air battles in World War II, packs a ton of quests, flying upgrades and mass slaughter on top – and whistles on this fussy realism.

Modern fighter aircraft are highly sophisticated – and boring. As we push the enemy aircraft 30 km away onto buttons, the rest is the homing missile.

Old fighter planes are stubborn – and super exciting “. Since we have ran 30 yards to the enemy, hostile to him crank, easy to hold. Just stupid when the guy tried the same thing! Heroes in the Sky plays like the good old flight “simulation” à la Heroes over Europe, where the action is in the foreground. Schräubchengenauer realism as with IL-2 Sturmovik must remain outside, here and fractional pilots celebrate in a few minutes first kills. Cool: The dogfights can deny it even with your Ollen joystick. Alternatively, with a gamepad or mouse and keyboard (can be controlled well, but it goes much flutes flying flair).

World of WorldWar 2

Bomber instead of blood elves: Every shot brings us experience, loot and the quest goal.

Heroes in the Sky beaten the air battles of World War II with a lot of online role-playing. In the home base we get from supervisors or nice barmaids orders. In turn, how we fulfill quests: Where we collect in fantasy role-playing Ogernasen and iron ores, here we stacked the piston and get bombers from the sky. As a reward we collect upgrades for our machine. Better machine guns for example, or fatter armor. Even blueprints for tuning parts we can get hold of the parts we needed craft blast from our enemies, or buy them from other players.

From level rises, we benefit twice. First, we improve the characteristics of our current machine, make it a more agile avoid importing or decrease the cooling time of on-board weapons. Second, we must buy every few steps better boxes. At first we cucumber or with a stout Bulldog biplanes to the front, then there’s rapid Spitfires, the German Messerschmitt counterpart or the legendary Lightning, with its characteristic twin hull.

Frontal on all fronts
A typical Pacific Mission: Zero beharken inert carrier.

After a short crisp tutorial we decide for a final “group”: The Westalliiierten plus Russia, on the other side of the Axis powers with aircraft from Germany, Japan and Italy (who needs it …). Apart from the flying Arsenal are no different than the two parties.

In the missions Heroes in the Sky turns to be correct: In the minute we meet computerized enemy fighter, bomber squadrons and blimps get out of the clouds, flying low race towards oncoming tanks, firing rockets swarms in destroyers and battleships. If we did a mission, we can address them again – but with tougher opponents, composed often quite different, or appear in other places than before.

The lightning-fast P-38 Lightning you need to make you hard.

Especially in the fast-paced team dogfights do it right a lot of humor. Here you have to look long after fellow passengers, so just as Battle Field and Co. in a list you can see how many players made ready just for a specific mission. And because the stakes are quite fast around, you can also quickly turn times during the lunch break a couple of rounds.

In the co-op know oihr quickly forget where you coming or going. Dozens of airmen Rakteten, tracer bullets and smoke move across the sky, across cracks, rattles, it rattles. The commotion draws the lucky from the ailing technology: The game is running on the old 800×600 resolution. But as I said – with two enemy fighters on six clock anyway you have no time to Mosern about the outdated look.

At a glance:

Pro:
# Easier access
# Superrasante battles
# Varied quests
# 100 Aircraft
# Fast Gruppenfinden
+ # Supports Joystick Gamepad

Cons:
# Fixed resolution of 800 by 600
# Partly truncated texts
Conclusion

Who can be put off by the antique look is your own fault. For Heroes in the Sky scores especially with fast dogfights and ground battles in which my lack of anti-aliasing and blur-effects sch … are all one. In particular, the co-op mode, I like, because with a good group makes Bomberwegbomben really addictive. A refreshing alternative to the Orc-clap!

Unlike those other games, Shakes & Fidget lets you play for quite a lot of time before you run out of things to do. Instead, they choose to pace out gameplay by having more small timers during gameplay. For example, taking a quest in the tavern might mean you wait for two minutes while a progress bar fills and then view twenty seconds of still pictures tossing attacks at each other. That’s plenty of time to switch to another window and check your email, post on their forums, or even play another social networking game. This design choice makes Shakes & Fidget more appealing multi-taskers than any other group.

Perhaps as a result of this multi-task friendly design, the community on the built-in forums is better than the average browser-based game. The community is helpful and surprisingly active. Becoming an active reader of the forums is almost required to fully enjoy the game.

Thankfully Shakes & Fidget is a true browser based game with no downloads and nothing left on your computer after you leave their site. This allows someone to very quickly jump into the game and start playing whether they are at work, school or home. This is exactly the kind of game which can be played absent-mindedly in the middle of a class or while goofing off at work.

The art design in Shakes & Fidget mimics World of Warcraft’s colorful stylized fantasy setting with it’s own take on each of it’s eight races. The written descriptions of the quests and various caricatures in the game have a whimsical attitude. For example, a necklace won in a quest might look just like a car air-freshener on a string, or you may encounter a quest-giver who says, “I hope you have balls, as my quests are not designed for weaklings.” The sense of humor in the game goes a long way toward enhancing it’s longevity.

When it comes to sound design, Shakes & Fidget is severely lacking. There is no music in this game. Other than the few sound effects heard during combat, the game is silent. There is also a chime sound when you complete a quest that grabs your attention when you’re off in another window.

When it comes to actual fun factor, Shakes & Fidget fairs as well as other browser based social networking games. Most of your enjoyment in this game will come from the sense of accomplishment you feel at watching your character grow over the course of time.

The main method of advancing your character is the Tavern. In the tavern, a quest giver will give you various quests to complete. Once you click “accept” on the quest, no further input is needed from you until the quest is complete. While you’re waiting, a hand drawn picture and a progress bar will appear. After several minutes, the progress bar will fill and your portrait will toss attacks at an enemy portrait until it dies. The reward given at the end is usually coin, but sometimes equipment, potions or mushrooms will drop as well.

The arena offers you the opportunity to fight another player’s stats for pride and rewards. Once again, there is no input from either player once the fight begins. Player skill does not come into play in any of the battles. Instead, character stats and random luck are the only things that lead to victory.

The most interesting innovation is the dungeons which first open after the tenth level. Although little attention is required by the player to complete these dungeons, it serves as a way of testing the character you’ve been building up with difficult bosses.

Although Shakes & Fidget is a free game, it will likely cost you if you become addicted. Those tedious progress bars can be skipped, you can fight arena battles back-to-back, and search the potion shop for valuable potions, but it costs red mushrooms. Once you’re hooked on those red mushrooms, it will cost you ten dollars per one hundred to keep going.

Overall, Shakes & Fidget is a fine entry into the browser based social networking scene. The humor and cartoony graphics will appeal to many people. The boring progress bars and lack of real gameplay will turn off video game enthusiasts.

The war at home?

If the initial information concerning Homefront date back to over a year, THQ has decided to let the developers go at their own pace in order not to repeat the hasty exit of Homefront. As a result, expected on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the title of Kaos Studios should not land until at least six months. Ample time for developers to refine things and THQ to gently raise the pressure. Indeed, as you can imagine, THQ we have not revealed everything during the brief presentation that has been made in the game .. and it was eg not possible to test things by ourselves.

The first trailer to “set the stage”

To stay in the (relative) disappointment, we should note that the multiplayer has hardly been addressed. Despite these limitations, recognize that people of Kaos have been very receptive to detailing many aspects of the game solo. But first things first, with the scenario of Homefront. It is therefore to take part in a future in which the United States struggle to recover from recurring economic crises and a certain distrust of its partners. Meanwhile, North Korea moved closer to its neighbor to the south before crystallizing around her resentment of many countries in Southeast Asia against the United States.

Within 15 years, Korea is unified and managed to make Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and even China in its draft that led to the naked invasion of U.S. territory. The single-player campaign Homefront begins when our future best friend, a Jacobs, wakes up in a camp of American resistance located in Montrose, Colorado in full. In a land where the Mississippi hopelessly irradiated, became an impassable barrier for the few armed forces still held the U.S. government, the camps of the resistance are the only islands of safety for objecting to Korea.

In short, it’s pretty much what we said site manager, Boone. Through the beginning of Chapter 2 of the single player campaign, it is showing us “his” camp. He shows us how the “survivors” contrive to survive, how few solar panels and the oil extracted from oil sands are to meet their energy needs. Those few minutes of nice souvenirs to remind players of Metro 2033 and the portrait that America is entering … But then that only lasts a few minutes, because we must get down to business and in this case in Chapter 3.

“The camp is actually a former shopping mall and you can see some American brands such as the famous Hooters”

Not too spoil the game’s story, saying that it allows us to see an operation of the Resistance. The player, assisted by Connor and Rianna, must wield a sniper rifle and eliminate many Korean soldiers when a truck loaded with explosives is to force the enemy camp. The power of the explosion was such that many enemy soldiers light up like torches. Visual effect guaranteed! Particularly striking, this is highlighted on several catches that illustrate this preview: the camp is actually a former shopping mall and you can see some American brands such as the famous Hooters.

After the firing sequence where we obviously have to judge either the aim or ballistics, our trio of heroes must take refuge in a tower while a helicopter makes a real enemy raid. Again, the big show at the rendezvous, but the developers have focused on placing the player at the heart of the action. To do this, Dave Votypka – studio boss – told us that the Drama Engine was used: it is a technique called “magnetism” that blend classic scripts and events “procedural” for the player has a real feeling of always being the point around which everything else revolves.

Impressively, this scene bodes better for the single player campaign

The helicopter raid ends more or less by the arrival – reinforcements – an impressive engine Resistance mounted on six wheels, the Goliath. It is also an opportunity to show us a second style of gameplay a little different from traditional gunning sequences: it is a kind of marker to use laser to point to the enemy that should eliminate the Goliath. .. After a few shots, the helicopter then returned and our host has not missed the opportunity to make him bite the dust involving the Goliath firepower. Thus, the brief presentation Homefront ended gameplay.

A display that is visually impressive, although the game – then Xbox 360 – still suffering from a lot of approximations in the management of textures in the character models or antialiasing. So many points on which the developers are still working while the output should not take place before – no doubt – the beginning of next year. A presentation that we subsequently allowed to ask many questions of the young guys in Kaos. Dave Votypka eg income is the variety of missions offered to players throughout the single player campaign.

“The heart of the action will consist of multiple pieces of bravura cherished FPS
If, as expected, the heart of the action will consist of multiple pieces of bravura dear to FPS, Kaos promises something more varied. There will therefore be referred to the sequence of the Goliath and a passage where – at the controls of a helicopter – the player must destroy a convoy. There was also a mission where – more than the gamplay – this is the scenario that makes the difference. Here it comes to Americans – recluse – who do not want to hear about Korea or the Resistance and then the player must retreat to an area inhabited by civilians and thereby put at risk while they posed no threat to the Koreans.

These two examples illustrate perfectly what Kaos tries to show with this invasion of the United States: the plight of people who had no idea about the war on its own soil and population responses. When some are resigned, others were outraged, and requires action game is of course the side of the revolt that examines the heart of our heroes … We would still have plenty to say about this particular Homefront and we could talk about the arsenal available to the player, an arsenal designed to show the lack of technological advances on both sides as the crisis Economic research has blocked.

We could also return in greater detail on the course of a campaign – once will not hurt – do not ask us to save the world: here, there is already the center of the Korean operations of San Francisco! Finally, there is still much to say about the multiplayer mode: it is a game Kaos stamped anyway. Unfortunately, THQ prefer to wait several weeks before revealing the characteristics of a mode that is limited to two opposing factions (Korea / USA), which would obviously take over the class system in vogue at the now. While Call of Duty and Medal of Honor would fill in October and November, Homefront seems able to occupy the beginning of 2011. Stay tuned!

When you start this course if you proceed directly to the real games you tighten treaty noob like crazy for this reason it has been developed for rooms which have no training in statistics and where you can practice against bots (but weak at the beginning) or against players of similar level.

Also once you start playing you can match the son of you “friends” other than kevin, Kakou, grouch … etc. with which you can make games that avoids being in a team with two level 3 which feed the enemy or in a team where everyone stays in his corner when you have 3 guys on your line being assault you.

Now about heroes “overcheated” even if I also say that when I am in fact kill inflict any damage to the opposing hero, in reality they are not as AC, or so most of the time it has cause the feed to which it had the right to object and thus abused they could buy it if you do not believe me try to take this same hero and you will see that it is not so “Cheated” when it c It is you who have it.

After this course the assassin type characters have more opportunities to kill the enemy hero (but remember it, the goal of the game, contrary to the tendency to forget [bad] players, not to 60 kills but to destroy the towers to access the inhibitors, which can destroy the Nexus opponent more easily with the Super-Henchmen (Henchmen of Evil is that which is full of PVS).

The game still has a good grip, if you do not know what to take as an object there are many guides that offers good build although it takes some getting used to the front.
That is, for me it’s still a game that could well be great if programmers out more maps instead of leaving new hero (a bit like Shen abused for some) and if they reduce the duration of which is really really huge stunts, 3. 5 seconds it seems short but when there are two guys who you clap above is super long.
That’s all I have to say (if you disagree I accept any constructive criticism).

Overall the game is excellent. Well I disagree the warrior are simply over-cheat in the game but hey it’s a personal opinion ^ ^ (an immortal guy for 8 seconds but fortunately ulti can twirl you dashing into top t’explosant wet while the leakage prevented you xD it’s awesome), however, it was a little out of hand veteran DotA before one or two y’avait Kevin who fought a duel, but now the slightly “Kawai” of graphics (and the dolls in clay) attracts people who sometimes just do craignos pajamas (basically tell their stories with mr. WC. Fortunately this version of humanity that is French and it has the right to an international population as a whole rather respectful.

A large imbalance in some personal (such as a rat killer of death that can owned a lot of personal lap top in 5 seconds). The number of personal (42 to this day) is correct and we can expect new boyfriends to dance the Carioca.

Conclusion: Good gameplay, good graphics, good character (well it depends if they go the nerve munchkin), poorer population than G kikoo arena especially the French (who are particularly dofus)

I see many players who do not like Star Trek Online due to excessive criticism on the internet. This is unfortunate, because if this game is not that perfect at the moment, and still undergoing improvement … it has nevertheless some advantages.

First Impression, good to very good. Even if the graphics engine is most certainly the same as Champions Online (Cryptic inside), I found it runs better on my setup like CO precisely.

Technically, it’s very beautiful beyond imagination and words. Small downside: The animation of the characters deserve a little more flexibility in the future. The management of NPC Pathfinding often cause crashes. One area for improvement, in my opinion. (On the collisions in space, it does not cause any damage … it is a choice, but I would have preferred more realism)

The tutorial provides a simple handling, and contact will be instant. In the first few minutes it basically determines if we keep hooked with it or not in the future, a graphic style, a mood, an idea. For my part, I will. Why? Multiples!

Neither Elf nor Dwarves or Hobbits or Orcs … No Heroic-Fantasy! I find that very refreshing. It’s a game resolutely turned towards science fiction, and if a fan of Star Trek certainly find a lot of details that appeared in the series and movies, it is anyway a cohesive and structured.

Unfortunately, it is often compared to EVE Online … Which is certainly a benchmark for MMO SF, indeed … But that does not play in the same court in my opinion. STO is a game that relies more on action / exploration. It allows short solo part, or longer in groups. But it is somewaht similar to economics and management of EVE.

And so much the better!

Those games are not in competition, they simply are not there to provide the same type of gameplay … and probably not to the same type of players.

The customization of characters and vessels is highly developed (despite the leg Cryptic: CoH / CoV, CO) without being excessive. Little chance of meeting his clone, then.

Missions open to Warhammer Online or Champions Online, or each player added after their arrival in a war zone with a common goal.

I also read that many complain about the repetitiveness of the missions, too often the same. Ok, but find me an MMO or not the majority of cases (where the missions are proposed, although heard!), And I am willing to discuss! Already, one-step quests like: 35 kills Marcassins legendary flamboyant side and when you income, you will be euthanized 55 wolves twilight musty … The quests are neat, and requires a reading of their contents, Yes, … I am not against!

We announced the possibility of having access to bridges and halls of the vessels in near future …. This will be a plus, indeed.

At this moment I have not tested the PVP, and so I did not speak.

My overall impression is that Star Trek Online is strongly influenced by Action / adventure with RPG elements (KOTOR / Mass Effect, etc.), which incorporates some dynamics (including the ability to manage the following, and their allocated shares with break) and is intended to anyone wishing to spend some time in a universe or passing other players, he is able to play with others, without forcing.

Let us be clear: The Casuals will be here very comfortable. Players looking for a sandbox world where there are no restrictions, nostalgic for the PRE-CU Star Wars Galaxie … sorry, but it’s not there!
STO is a very nice game, a new generation MMO. In evolution, therefore, propose an alternative and less time consuming. An MMO, albeit with gaps, a correction be made, and content to add … but I bet they will get back within a year.

So, MMO? YES, but with no obligation. RPG? … If you want, and only IF the players want and do so … As the universe allows, there’s no reason to interfere! Scotty … Move me on board! Forward!