Game Review: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (360)

Posted By: Bratman Du

Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Codemasters
Release:
NA: October 6, 2009
EU: October 8, 2009
AUS: October 15, 2009
UK: October 9, 2009
Genre: Military Sim / FPS
Players: Single-player, Single-co-op, Multiplayer, Multiplayer-Co-op
Age Rating:
BBFC: 15
ESRB: M
PEGI: 18
USK: 16

Billed as an infantry sim, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, makes many claims about it's size, it's realism and it's hardcore difficulty. This is a game I had been looking forward to, I always wade in on the hardest difficulty of any game I have right away. I hadn't played the first Operation Flashpoint game, but I damn sure liked the sound of bullets causing you to bleed out, super hard enemies who spot you a mile off and the need for finely honed military tactics to complete missions.


I was beginning to wonder if the days of hardcore PC only shooters were dead and gone. Halo and Call of Duty and their kind have given us '30 seconds of fun' gameplay, regenerative health, and all the other console/casual devices we've grown used to. So the PC fps games of the late 90s and early 00s didn't really make the transition to consoles at the time, mainly because consoles of that era didn't have the power to compete with PCs. But now that the performance divide between PC and console narrows, we see more and more multi-console-PC releases, often to the detriment of PC versions, and earning the malign of PC owners.


But for those of us who aren't rich enough to keep up with the latest PC hardware, PC games on consoles is very much welcome for the most part. Bohemia Interactive's original Operation Flashpoint was praised by PC gaming mags and websites the world over, however a fallout resulted in Codemasters becoming both developer and publisher of the 'sequel', Dragon Rising.

It shows. What I mean is, this game was developed and published by Codemasters, and it shows heavy signs of design by committee. You can almost tell the parts of the game where some one higher up the food chain at Codemaster decided that being able to put blurb facts on the back of the box took frontseat to a rounded gaming experience.


Let's take the bit of blurb on the back of the gamebox, a 220 km2 open world battlefield. That's all well and good but none, NONE of the missions in the game make much use of this fact, and as of yet there is not free roam mode. Maybe I'm missing something as a mostly console gamer (nowadays), but what is the point of a 220km2 open world environment, when each of the game's 11 or so missions require you to follow orders within a set area. Roaming around outside your mission area usually results in failure. Though I have to admit, it's great to have the option to approach a mission from any angle, but it really feels like there's a lot of wasted space. I'm told there will be a free roam mode added with DLC, but I'm focussing on the release version of the game here.


50 vehicles are your to command! Yet 95% of your time will be spent running. Vehicles are largely irrelevant to most tasks, save for a few missions. They'll either draw too much attention and get you shot, or be so uncontrollable and useless that you're better off on foot.

Ok so far I've gone in angry. Maybe not angry as such, more, annoyed disappointment, but there are some excellent features in the game, graphics aren't something I usually focus on, but I'd like to mention that missions start at a certain time of day, and, from there, they occurr in real time. This means that, when you begin mission 2 for example, at 5:30am, it is initially dark. Take more than half an hour on this mission and you'll notice the Sun rises, and the map gets brighter, negating the protection and stealth that darkness afforded you, and beautifully lighting up the trees and grass. Then you see a badly textured low poly bush and the immersion suffers a bit, or you notice how the fire effects and explosions look like they were created with MS Paint.


When the gameplay works it works well. I really enjoyed a lot of the missions, in both the stealth and firefight sections. Getting your guys (and occasionally gals) in position, forming a tight wedge and ordering return fire only. For a time it's exactly what the doctor ordered. But, there are numerous bugs in this title at launch, and although a patch is promised to update the sometimes great, sometimes erratic AI behaviour, it's pretty poor form to have this many glaring errors at launch.


Two things about this game in particular really bugged me. First, the collision deteciton. I was in a building, looking out a window - standing up - not crouching - aiming my gun out the window, with the muzzle pointing right at an enemy. As I opened fire, the bullets seemed to hit off the window sill below. Now this happens in many games, GTAIV, Halo, Red Faction, Call of Duty. It's usually not a problem. But here I had the gun clearly looking out a window, there was no way this should have been hitting off the window sill.


The second big annoyance, was the weapon selection. Now, I understand that in a 'realistic' military sim, it takes a short time to get weapons out, you have to put the old one away, and take out the new one, and if it's a launcher, lay it down on the ground, and set it up, etc. That's fine, I can deal with that, however, to actually select the weapon is the part that should take no time at all. What happens when you want to switch weapons? You hold 'B' on (XBox360), and about a second later the weapon menu comes up. Why it takes a full second for a simple menu I do not know. Then, to add to my exacerbation, the menu for selecting weapons has a delay, so when you tap up on the dpad or analogue stick, it doesn't move the selection, so you tap it again and half a second later you've gone one past the weapon you wanted.

Now these are seemingly minor gripes, but if a game is going to claim to have ultra realsim, it can't seriously expect us to navigate unresponsive menus in the middle of a firefight can it? If a game wants realism, we need collision detection that doesn't ruin a perfectly lined up headshot. On the hardest mode, with no checkpoints in a mission, you often can't fire a shot until you're ready, as you would give away your position, so when you finally take it and it hits something way below where you're aiming, due to poor collision detection, it's a little bit frustrating going back to the start of a mission which could be anywhere between half an hour to an hour's work.


I respect the decision to try and bring hardcore-ness to the FPS genre once again, but this is not what fans of the series or newcomers were looking for. Codemasters clearly wanted a game that sat apart from the CODs and Halos, but at the same time, they need to think more about how those games came to dominate the FPS genre.

I'm not saying OFDR should have been 'consolized', but if you're bringing such a hardcore traditionally PC only game to consoles, you need to make some compromises, and think about how to make complex controls and game mechanics work with a controller.

Also, I think what defines 'hard' between 5 - 8 years ago and today, has changed. It's no longer about lives, continues, psychic AI and no checkpoints, it's about carefully thought out level design, smart AI that can adapt and react to you and the world around it. As such, I think the hardest difficulty in OFDR, goes too far. I'm not claiming it's too hard, I'm saying taking out checkpoints doesn't make it harder, it makes it annoying. When you've proven you can beat a section of a level or mission, why should you have to do it again when you die at a later, often unrelated part of the mission. It makes it feel like progressing through the game is not about getting better, it's more about doing a mission over and over until you know where to go and what to do, which is just learning by rote.

Even with the promised patch AI fix, I feel there are always going to be major control issues, and often a lack of direction. Coupled with poor interfaces, unresponsive menus, and a lot of running, it's hard to like this game.


Multiplayer is unfortunately not much better. Again, promised fixes for netcode aren't even an issue. Even without lag I feel it would still be a mess. It's never really clear what the point is, it's like Codemasters are making it harder by not telling us anything about the game. Even the manual has precious little info on gametypes and objectives. I usually don't even have to read manuals anymore for most games, usually game feedback and menu items are clear enough to get you having fun in no time.

In one multiplayer mode I believe (but can't be sure) that there four people on each team, with each person having an AI squad at their disposal. Call me crazy but I thought the point of multiplayer was to play against humans, not crazy AI? Save that for co-op. Speaking of co-op, I played a couple of missions this way, but lag and the problems of single player cropped up all too often to be enjoyable.


Summing up, it had so much promise, and when things all come together you can have a lot of fun with this but it doesn't take much googling to find message board after message board about the problems with this game and how angry long term fans are with what was done with this game. Ultimately it fails at what it set out to do, and when it's so alienating to both the casual gamer, and to the dedicated Operation Flashpoint fans, you have to ask - who did they think would like this?


A noble effort to bring hardcore gaming to a console, with some great ideas, let down by some strange design, interface and gameplay implementation choices. When it works, it works well, but mostly, it doesn't come together enough into a cohesive experience.

Bratman.

0 comments - Last Comment By Bratman Du

Game Review: Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank (PSN)

Posted By: westy118

Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank
Publisher : Sony Online Entertainment
Dev: Pop Cap Games
Price: £6.99

Another game from the Playstation Network, Heavy Weapon has all the feel of those side scrolling action games of the Commodore 64 and Nintendo (guess what consoles I had as a kid!), rolling along shooting everything in sight, and simply because of the tank, Metal Slug, but Metal Slug this is not!

There are several modes, campaign, survival, boss battle, and online, rankings too.

A very basic set up, use the left analogue stick to move your tank left and right to dodge bullets and use the right analogue stick to aim (pointing it in whatever direction will fire in that direction, no buttons used). We also have the X/O button for your chosen special weapon (rockets etc) and R2 will detotnate any nukes you have, they'll destroy pretty much everything on the screen, except for end bosses – they'll take a good bit of health off them. Then there's the Super Laser, collect four pieces to get this weapon which will destroy anything in it's path (never actually had it during a boss battle but I'm pretty sure it would FUBAR it!). They only problem with this weapon is that it lasts for so little time after taking a good while to actually get.


Ok getting on to the game the little cut scene story at the start reminds me very much of a DS game, static pictures in a comic book fashion, the world is doomed and the tank is the only hope. Each level is a section of the map made to look like America and each level new enemies are add, getting a little trickier every level (the dive bombing planes are very tricky I found). Difficulty wise the game had a nice learning curve to it, I found myself breezing through the first two levels, ge ting to understand the Super Laser, nukes and your friendly helicopter (it tells you not to shoot it, so naturally I tried to destroy it, I think the bloody thing is indestructible, what's the point!). By level three however it hit the fan and I found myself dying a few times.

This is when I discovered my problem with the game, I was all set to write a decent review on it, I thought I was enjoying it after all, but after losing my lives and having to start the level all over again I found it a chore, it's the same thing over and over again, there's no massive variety of weapons – I loved games like U.N. Squadron and R Type because they kept things fresh with loads of weapons and bad guys, this just does not have that– yes there are different weapons, but none of them enhanced the game for me, it felt no different from what I had in level 1. I found myself playing on in this game simply because I had to finish this review. And as for the bosses, save you nukes (you won't need them during the level) crack them all off on the boss then fire away til they're dead, simple as.


During the level itself, it's easy enough picking off planes and trucks when there's not too many on the screen, and when it does get busy just keep rotating the right analogue stick very quickly, it seems to do the job just fine – and where's the fun in that!

Overall this game this game feel much more suited to the likes of an iphone app or a quick PC game, I don't even feel it's up to the standard of several other games on the Playstation network (Trash Panic being a particular favorite of mine), when you can buy PS3 games for £15 or even less sometimes, £6.99 just does not seem worth it.

**I was going to give this game a 1.5, until I accidentally played this game with Hulk Hogan's 'Real American' playing off my laptop (I was doing research for my job, alright!) it gave me a good chuckle! There I give it a:



2/5 – by no means the best PSN game out there

0 comments - Last Comment By westy118

Game Review: Section 8 (PC/360)

Posted By: skynes

Platform: PC, XBox 360
Developer: TimeGate Studios
Publisher: SouthPeak Games

Ratings:

PEGI:









ESRB:



Section 8 is a sci-fi first person shooter powered by the Unreal Engine. The first noticeable thing when you start this game is the odd organisation of the menu. Now normally in a game you would have Campaign followed by Multiplayer. In section 8 you have Multiplayer then Instant Action then Corde's Story? This tells you straight away that, first and foremost, this is a multiplayer game. Your campaign (Corde's Story) is essentially training for the multiplayer.

Once playing the actual game you'll notice that it's pretty. It's very pretty. The armour looks awesome, the spaceships looks amazing, the detail is great. It's what you'd expect from a game built upon the Unreal Engine. Therein lies the first problem, even if you don't bother reading the box within minutes of play you'll recognise this as an Unreal game. The environments, the textures, the objects, the playstyle. They all scream UNREAL at the top of their lungs. Now this isn't a bad thing, the Unreal games are excellent and the engine is a fantastic product, but given what else has been done with the Unreal Engine, like Bioshock, it isn't wrong to expect something a bit more original.

The Campaign itself is a series of missions in the style of Unreal Assault maps. You drop in at one location and have to go to another location killing off continuously spawning nameless enemies while capturing points or destroying objects. You are limited in the area you can explore by a red border on the minimap. Entering this border will shut down your system in 5 seconds, in other words, kill you. But death isn't a big deal in this game, you die, you click, you spawn in orbit again and free fall to your spawn point before crashing into the ground and you're ready to go. During this time the game continued on without you, just like a game of Unreal Tournament would.

The story is unimportant and forgettable. You're with one military group fighting another military group and trying to kill a defector who turned from your group to theirs. You're not given much information on who anyone is or why you're fighting. Even when members of your team get killed off, you just don't care. There's no real bond between the player and the characters formed and the game doesn't try to make them. This leads to a very bland story where you're more interested in gunning things than why you're gunning them.
The game advertises it as being able to 'Fully Customise your armour and weapons for tactical advantages'. What this means in practice is that when you go to a weapon drop pod you can choose what two weapons you carry into battle. Your choices are Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Pistol or Sniper Rifle. You can also choose your secondary items such as a mortar, a knife, a repair kit etc. As for the armour customising you have 10 points to split among a bunch of skills. These skills are things like +5% damage to your weapons, -10% recoil, +12% armour or bonuses to your repair and shield recharge speed. These Give you a degree of control on your playstyle. However in the heat of battle you'll find that the difference between these is so insignificant you might as well have not bothered.


Little of how combat works is actually explained to you. Given that this is an FPS it should be straightforward, but sometimes you'll find your shots ignore the enemies shield and hurt him directly for huge damage. Other times you'll find no matter how many bullets you pump into him you can't dent him. Even the Sniper rifle is little more than an inconvenience to enemies, its advantage is clearly in the range not the ability to head shot people. Given the unclear nature of combat you'll find yourself using an Assault Rifle and Rocket Launcher for most situations.

The real meat of this game is in the multiplayer, for which there is only one gameplay mode. A strange victory point collection game, you get points for killing your opponents and capturing and holding points. You gain money as you complete these tasks which allows you to buy items such as a mech suit, a tank or various anti-tank/personnel/air weapons. These help with defending a point and give you a bit of control over how you defend. Xbox 360 owners will be disappointed to learn that there is no split-screen multiplayer in this game. So you can't play with your friends on the same console, it's online multiplayer only.


A couple of interesting things Section 8 brings to the table is a lock on. When you right click to aim if you press E you'll lock onto whoever is in your sights and for the next few seconds you can fire without worrying about tracking them as the aim never moves off them. It only has a short duration and a fairly long cooldown so this can't be spammed. If you get injured in Section 8, your shield will automatically restore over time, your health doesn't. To restore your health you either stand near a weapons pod and it will heal you, or if you chose the repair kit amongst your items you can heal yourself, an ally or any deployable such as the tanks or turrets.

Overall Section 8 is an ok sci-fi shooter. It doesn't excel in any area and is fairly poor in the campaign story. If you like Unreal based shooters for online multiplayer than you might like this. If you prefer more single player story action or playing with people in the same room then Section 8 is not the game for you.

1 comments - Last Comment By flare

Game Review: King of Fighters XII (360/PS3)

Posted By: RedWarriorKTF

Developer: SNK Playmore
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Release: September 25, 2009
Genre: Fighting
Platforms: Xbox 360 (version tested), PS3
Players: 2
Age Rating: ESRB: T (Teen) / PEGI: 12+
Price: £39.99

The King of Fighters XII is a completely hand drawn 2D fighter. The match ups let you choose 3 fighters, Then you choose the order they play, which means you will be playing head games with your opponent trying to get the advantage before the fight begins. This is definitely one of the strong points of the King of Fighters as it forces you to try a bit of variety in your fighting style and means you won’t get bored with your friend that always uses the same fighter. You all know who you are.
One of the first things that came to my attention about The King of Fighters XII is how much of a gaming marmite experience it is. After a good few hours on it there were some of us that just couldn’t get enough and there were others who kept whinging to put on Street Fighter.


Visually King of Fighters XII is absolutely beautiful. In this day and age it is so refreshing to see a totally 2D hand drawn game, particularly when in high definition. The animation is very fluent however could maybe use an extra few frames on certain character moves. I also loved how explosive and powerful the effects were without cluttering the screen up and making you begin foaming at the mouth.


Despite all the positive points just there I do have one thing I would like to nit pick on, which is how pixely the characters appear when the camera is zoomed in. By no means does this make the game ugly, however I just wish they had put the sprites in at a higher resolution.

King of Fighters XII really has evolved the series. One of the main things you will notice is how much more responsive it feels to pull off moves when compared to older versions of the series which should allow all you combo fiends out there to do some nice juggles.
As standard to the series, all the characters are equipped with their own unique super move. Some have more than one.


The first of two new editions to the series is the ‘guard attack’. This move feels like an extension to the parrying system in ‘Mark of the wolves’ or ‘3rd Strike’, but more so like the focus attack in ‘Street Fighter IV’. Basically upon the moment of impact executing the guard attack will successfully counter the move sending your opponent flat on their face.

The second new edition and my personal favourite is the ‘critical counter’. It’s not always so easy to pull off but when you do… MY GOD! Never have I felt so satisfied in a fighting game. The first thing you will hear is an almighty thud and then you will notice your opponents character stunned, now your basically free to unleash a combo of fury on your opponent. What makes this so satisfying is the fact the move isn’t predetermined. It allows you to do any move you want and constantly combo and if you really want to show off you can follow up with your super move at the end of it.


One thing you may notice about King of Fighters XII is the severe reduction of fighters in the game when compared to others in the series. There are 22 in total and personally I think for a rebirth of the series that’s plenty for now and also lets SNK keep track of balancing issues a bit better.
What I’m not so impressed about is the lack of levels to fight in. I counted only six! I admit they all look great but you can only laugh at fat French women for so long. Its issues like this that made the game feel somewhat like a location test rather than a final release. But giving the benefit of the doubt I do believe in quality over quantity.


While I’m still in my bitching mode I would like to say a big wtf to loading times between "lounds"! Sorry, I mean rounds (engrish announcer). Serious, I really can’t understand the need for this. Could everything not have been loaded before the first round so there’s no break up in the in the flow? I haven’t tried installing to my hard drive yet but I hope this solves the problem.

King of Fighters XII also lets you play online via Xbox Live. Online play allows you to create or join a room with multiple opponents. When playing a person with a reasonable connection the game play is mostly fine, however when playing a person with a poor connection the game doesn't typically lag out like other fighters it literally runs in slow motion. But as most fighting game fans know, playing online is never a good thing, good connection or not, it will never respond just quite as fast as you need it to. Face to face is always the best option and makes the fight much more personal.

To round it up King of Fighters XII is an absolutely fantastic fighting game and SNK deserve a lot of respect for not taking short cuts and putting in time and effort making it entirely 2D. The game plays great. It is fun, hard hitting and addictive. It maybe lacks a bit of substance in certain areas but makes up for it in quality. I hope an update/sequel to the game comes in the future where SNK has had time to iron out any teething problems to the rebirth of the series. So Ill keep my fingers crossed for KoF XII ultimate match.

5 comments - Last Comment By Shadowblind

Game Review: Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis (NDS)

Posted By: 240-185

Overview :
So, you think that some Japanese games must travel towards Europe in order to discover how potentially funny they are? Well, don’t be in error. In Europe, we HAVE original games. Let me introduce you "Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis".

First, "Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis" is a movie about an employee of the French post company willing to end his carrier on the Côte d’Azur, in the south of France, quickly. He is told that he must faint to be an handicapped person in order to have that promotion. Unfortunately, he fails, and he’s sent in the north of France because of that failed trick. There, he’ll meet the local population (The "Ch’tis" (pronounce "Shtee")) and will learn how to live with them. Although it doesn’t sound original, this movie drained ONE THIRD of the French population into the theatres.

Mindscape France wanted to share the success the movie had and decided to make a videogame from it, allowing to a miserable studio a miserable budget for its development. And the main question was: “How could they make a comedy movie into a videogame?” The answer was: by making a partygame like WarioWare! Sounds easy, no?

Unfortunately, WarioWare is and still will be the master of partygames.

Gameplay :
The game only needs a stylus. Before each minigame, a breif summary tells you how to play it. The main problem is that the recognition of the stylus is nearly broken. That’s quite annoying if the minigame is based on action. Another main problem is that despite the explanations, you still don’t know how to cope with the minigame you’re playing. And every error will be granted by the same actor repeating “It’s Nooooooooooooooorth!” over, and over.

Oh, there’s a minigame where you must avoid cars. One where you must go the slowest possible on the motorway. One where you must set the right amount of coffee and chicory without knowing how many coffee you must pour in your cup. And on, and on.

But the worst is coming: the developers even managed to f*ck up a HANGMAN GAME! Imagine a hangman game where you have only three letters visible out of 26. Imagine a hangman game where you have to tap in order to barely scroll these letters. Imagine a hangman game where you MUST NOT THINK, but scroll randomly and hit the letters, hoping they will unveil the word written in the local dialect. How fun it is.

Graphics :
They are just plain ugly. Because of the time and the money allowed to this project, the characters look like early version of Miis. The textures are horrible too.

Sound :
We can hear gimmicks taken from the movie, but they are repetitive and way too short. The music is also forgettable.

Replay Value :
Normal people will throw the game away in a few minutes, mad people who will finish the game in a couple of hours will put it inside a drawer and never pick it again.

Conclusion :
With all that criticisms, will I tell you to avoid this game at all costs? Heck, no! Since this game is exclusively sold in France, if you have some family living in Normandy or in the southwest of France, tell them to buy this masterpiece of crap! It was so unsuccessful that the game is sold only five euros in some places!

Score:

1 comments - Last Comment By Shadowblind

Game Review: Trials HD (XBLA)

Posted By: Bratman Du

Trials HD is one of those games that fits very snugly into the category of simple fun. Like many of the better XBox Live Arcade games, it has a simple principle, crafted into a pleasingly fun experience.



I seem to recall playing a 2D flash version of this many years ago on newgrounds (Elasto Mania) and the concept was much the same as it is with Trials HD, a motorbike game of sorts, which plays out in 2D. Trials HD of course has a full 3D environment, however you are restricted to moving left and right, up and down in 2D, and the bike never moves in or out of the screen. Basically all you need concern yourself with is forwards and backwards.



The standard game mode is simply time trials on a variety of courses ranging from the relatively simple to the punishingly hard. If you lean too far forward or back your bike will tip, and if your head or back hit a surface it's a crash and you must restart or reset to a checkpoint. Of course you must often tip yourself so that the wheels align towards the surface you're heading for, incase you crack your head!



To get gold medals for each track, you pretty much have to do it in one run without crashing and in a fairly speedy time. Easy enough until you hit the end of the 'medium' set of tracks. As a nice touch, the timer at the top also displays the progress if any of your friends on the same level in an unobtrusive manner. If you find yourself unable to achieve a gold medal - you can at least try and best your friend's times!



Later on you'll find loops and physics-ey balancing sections, requiring careful control of your speed and orientation - like I mentioned earlier, if you're heading right for a wall you need to make sure your wheels face down onto the surface, likewise if you're heading for the roof - rotate upside down to protect your precious head!



It's a nice system, and 'nice' is a word I don't really like or use often, it implies that there's nothing offensive or wrong with this game, but at the same time, it doesn't blow me away. But that's ok, because I don't think you need to be blown away to enjoy a game.

That I remember enjoying the 2D flash version of Elasto Mania, many years ago, and had as much fun as I've had with Trials HD, says alot about the effectiveness of the core gameplay mechanic.

You unlock challenges too, which differ not only from the main time trial mode, but also from each other. One challenge wants you to bail out of your bike and send your driver hurtling down a large ravine, with points awarded for the most bones broken! Another might see you try and maintain balance to the end of the level, whilst inside a giant hamster ball - then try one where you are on top of the ball on the outside! Gently carry a trolley with missiles that explode after too much bumpiness or simple try the mountain climber challenge - where victory is decided by how high you can scale a ramp.

Some of these are really difficult, and there's frustration galore in both the main game and the challenges. But it's fun frustration, if that makes sense. Like N+, there's a drive to get better and you know if you replay a level you're stuck on, just one more try might get you through it! You learn to balance better and to manage your movement.

When you're done with all that there's even a detailed and full scale track editor which is incredibly complex, and apparently what the designers used to make the actual game.



It's a hard game to sum up, but basically it's a nice concept, a proven fun gameplay mechanic with plenty of challenging courses and tests of control, and the option for user created content that's on par with the actual game. Addictive and frustrating in equal measure, nicely presented graphically, there's little to complain about overall, but also, it's essentially a lot of what we've seen before repackaged.

There's no denying the fun that can be had with it, and if you find yourself with the points, this is worth a download, if even just for the hilarious crashes that can happen - you'll be cursing whilst any onlookers guffaw at your misfortune.


A decent game, with many hours of fun and frustration. Worth the money. If you liked N+, you'll probably like this.

Bratman.

5 comments - Last Comment By Bratman Du

Game Review: Maple Story (PC)

Posted By: skynes

Platform: PC
Developer: Wizet
Publisher: Various, depending on region.

Ratings:

PEGI:












ESRB:


Maple Story is a 2d side scrolling free to play MMO. It was developed by the South Korean company Wizet and is published and localized by a variety of different companies depending on region.

The first thing noticed when playing is the graphics. Maple Story uses pixelated graphics similar to the Super Nintendo but done in a chibi manga style. This leads to a very cute and bright game with much potential for silly enemies and creatures like giant killer tomatoes, smiley mushrooms and enormous pelicans with headsets. The downside to the graphical engine is that the pixels are very noticeable, especially on a larger monitor.


The gameplay is a mixture of super mario brothers with golden axe. You jump around platforms wielding swords and spells to defeat your enemies. As expected of an MMO your character levels up, gaining stat points and skill points. Stat points are spent on your basic stats, such as strength or intellect, each class needs different stats in the way you would expect, e.g. a Warrior relies more on strength and a Wizard relies on intellect. If you're unsure what to do, there is an auto-assign button which splits your stats up in a good way for your class. Although this may not be the best for min-maxing it's still a good feature to include. Your skill points are spent learning your class spells and abilities, the flame wizard I played had the ability to summon a flame elemental which followed me around and blasted my enemies. Each skill point I put into it (to a maximum of 20) increased its damage and duration.


The game is played using mouse and keyboard, with movement and attacking dealt with solely by keyboard control. You are able to customise any control except your movement, which remains as the cursor keys, this gives quite a bit of customisation and is able to suit most players needs. There is an option to use macros also.

As is normal for a lot of free to play mmo's the game includes a micro-transaction system whereby you spend real life money for in-game items and features. The items gained in Maple Story are almost purely cosmetic, things like a lightsaber weapon, a detectives hat or a Halloween outfit, none of which have any impact on the gameplay. The items which aren't cosmetic don't grant any combat advantage to the player, these items are pet incubators, stat/skill point resetting scrolls or a scroll which increases your experience gain for 24 hours.

As in most MMO's there is an important social side to the game. Guilds and Parties are common place, where players group up for a short or longer period of time and interact, both in playing the game and just chatting. The game also includes a marriage function, where two players can get married and throw a party with their friends.

However despite being around for such a long time, Maple Story suffers from some quality of life issues.

The game is based heavily around grinding, getting past the tutorial which takes you to level 10, requires you doing a variety of quests which almost entirely consist of “Go here and kill 20 of this creature”. This repeats from level 1 until level 10.


To be fair this is a common quest among MMO's and a common problem among many however the spawn rate of said creature is very poor, it can take up to 20 minutes to kill 20 creatures as having killed all those on the screen you must wait for them to respawn. This is of course assuming you're fighting them alone and not sharing them with 3 or 4 other players. I myself have seen a player standing in the middle of the screen and when the enemies spawned cast a screen wide fire spell which wiped out all the enemies at once, leaving none for any other player. They continued to camp that same spot for quite some time.

Many of the quest givers during the tutorial weren't in the town but in the field of battle. The game doesn't pause or render you invincible whilst talking to a quest giver, so not only are you being attacked whilst getting a quest, you're also unable to fight back. A minor issue but an annoying one none the less.

The other QOL issues are more cosmetic. There is no windowed mode option, in fact trying to put the game into windowed mode with software or tools will be detected as a hack by the game guard system and shut your game down. This same game guard also dislikes Alt-Tabbing out and should you do Alt-Tab you'll find that all your keys come out as BBBBbbbbbbb, making surfing or IM chat impossible.

The in-game UI can be a bit clunky and awkward, clicking the small X in the top right corner of tabs can take a few clicks as you're more likely to wind up dragging the window instead of closing it. Picking up items can be a nuisance also as items are not automatically collected when you walk over them. Instead you must press an item pick up key for each item you want to collect. When you've just killed three or four bad guys at once and they each drop 2 or 3 items, that's a lot of unnecessary button pushing just to get a small amount of money. As other player's items are likely to be mixed in it becomes very difficult to tell apart what are your items and what aren't.

Maple Story may have been released in different areas in different times, but the game itself is six years old. Such quality of life issues would have been expected and tolerated then due to such a small market. This however is 2009 and free to play mmo's are everywhere. There is no excuse for this now, the game must constantly be improving or it'll be left behind when the next big F2P MMO comes along.

Maple Story is a cute and amusing game, the bright and chibi graphics make it appealing to the eye and interesting to play. The wide variety of items and customisation options means you may never see the same get up twice and gives you many options to make your character unique. Compared to other free to play MMO's however, it is lacking in some quality of life areas which hold it back from being a really excellent MMO.

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