MMO Camp

Gear Up is follows the successful footsteps of many other titles, while also asserting itself as both a unique and enjoyable title. What can only be described as an arcade-style blend of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and the free-to-play World of Tanks, Gear Up puts you in control of a highly modifiable, modular tank to blow up your enemies with. While the game is fun, free, and has extensive (and addictive) customization, it has some issues with both its online functionality and core gameplay aspects. It's also very similar to Robocraft in nature. Continue reading →

If there’s one message that BioWare has communicated time and time again throughout The Old Republic’s pre-release campaign it’s that story is king. Every element of the developer’s debut MMORPG is geared towards players identifying with their character in a universe which seems ripped right out of classic Star Wars lore. There’s very little of George Lucas’ dire Clone Wars trilogy in here, instead all the tropes – be it smooth-talking smugglers, ambivalent Jedi and the always treacherous Sith – have been ported wholesale from nights of the Old Republic, so Star Wars fans will find it both refreshing yet comfortably familiar. Continue reading →

There are two kinds of free-to-play games out there right now, ones that have been built for the new revenue model from the ground-up, and others which have micro-transactions slapped onto an already successful gameplay concept. Super Monday Night Combat is undoubtedly the former and for an arena shooter it has a great deal of personality with colorful characters, a family-friendly gladiatorial setting and novel chicken-enthused third-person shooter action. Continue reading →

When any developer launches a subscription-based MMO nowadays, it's impossible to avoid the fact that inevitably that game will go free-to-play at some point. You know it, we know it – hell, the developers especially know it. It's one of those unavoidable truths which foreshadows every pay monthly game's emergence. The launch is fine, thanks to the player base's initial excitement overriding their misconceptions about a game's value proposition, but a couple of months down the road and people start asking the question, ‘Why am I paying this much a month?' Continue reading →

When the original Guild Wars arrived in 2005, journalists like ourselves swooned at its new take on the MMORPG. Shirking aside the traditional approach of massive worlds populated with players, and replacing them with instanced areas only linked via public hubs gave the game an undeniably intimate feel, as if you and your team of other players really were a rare breed of heroes seeking to win back Tyria from the evil and the corrupt. It seems like another life since we left Prince Rurik to his demise in Prophecies, as even though Guild Wars 2 shares the same label as its predecessor, in terms of structure and storytelling it couldn't be more different. Guild Wars 2 also went free to play on August 29, 2015, making the game much more accessible to everyone. Continue reading →

The number of free-to-play shooters out there has absolutely exploded over the past 12 months. There's Tribes, Team Fortress 2, Blacklight Retribution, and Bulletrun to name more than a few, and now Ubisoft are throwing their hat into the increasingly crowded ring with Ghost Recon Online, an experience which places an emphasis on team-play, and equips players with a myriad of futuristic technology including stealth suits, shield projectors and other gizmos that wouldn't look out of place in the reboot of Total Recall. Continue reading →