Games Review

Unturned

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Unturned

Unturned can best be described as a sandbox styled massively multiplayer apocalypse survival game. Unlike many other survival MMOs, where players turn on each other for sport, in Unturned you focus more on working with other players to survive the zombie infestation. In the game you will form a group and fortify locations, scavenge for supplies and try to live off the land while keeping everyone alive. Unturned is constantly taking player feedback into consideration, and much of the game is being built by what you have to say to the developer in making the game a better place.

While Unturned is still in the first public release of the game, new features will continue to be added constantly. Community feedback has helped, and will continue to drive the developer to adding new features and graphics, as is evident from the first prototype of the game, to the version that you see today.

Firefly Online

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Firefly Online

Firefly Online is a strategic MMORPG currently in development by Quantum Mechanix and Spark Plug Games. The game is based off the Joss Whedon cult classic TV show, Firefly. Playing as captain of a space ship, players will start with little-to-nothing and must work their way up, completing missions and trading with other players in the universe. The gameplay is inspired by the original TV show by emphasizing exploration and the player’s ability to survive in the Verse.

Much like Captain Mal Reynolds of the Firefly TV show, you begin as a struggling captain in the Verse. It will be up to you to assemble a crew and to customize a ship of your own. Setting out to explore, you can wreak havoc in space and planet-side all while interacting with other players — whether that be trading or competing. Unique social features have been promised to help you interact with other Firefly Online fans to make the most of your experience.

It was announced at Comic Con 2014 that the original cast of the Firefly TV show would be reprising their roles for the upcoming PC/Mac and Mobile Firefly MMO. While it’s still unknown the capacity to which they will be included, the announcement is momentous and reassuring to fans in keeping the game tied closely to the universe the TV show established.

Firefly Online is on track to release in Spring of 2015 for PC and Mac on Steam as well as on iOS and Android mobile devices. Cross-platform and cross-device playability have been confirmed, though no word yet on pricing models or compatible mobile devices.

Ghost Recon Phantoms

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Ghost Recon Phantoms

Ghost Recon Phantoms is the latest free-to-play PC title in the Tom Clancy universe from Ubisoft. In Ghost Recon Phantoms you will become an elite member of the Ghost outfit and use an array of cutting-edge weapons and technology to help your squad dominate the enemy in a futuristic environment.

Many may remember this F2P Tom Clancy shooter under its beta name, Ghost Recon Online. This third-person shooter moved out of open beta for a worldwide release on Steam and PC in April of 2014, with Ubisoft announcing that the name change is due to the significant change the shooter underwent through beta.

Ghost Recon Phantoms allows you to choose from three classes: Assault, Support or Recon, each with completely different play-styles to match the way you like to play. The game is based on its 16-player team-fights, in which you and your fellow Ghosts must work together withing your squads to take out the opponent. That being said, this game places a huge emphasis on team-play, and the teams who work together are generally the ones who end up on top.

XAM

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XAM

XAM is a free to play next-generation MOBA game from new developer, LLC AnnGames. The best things about the MOBA is the team-fights, and the team hopes to make the team-fights in XAM as fun as possible. The rounds in XAM last only as long as 10 minutes, and refused to add anything to the game to distract players from the battlefield, like farming, mobs, item management and leveling up.

The basics of the game are extremely simple, you control only your character and your 6 abilities. They use a ground-target system, which means your abilities will not hit the enemies automatically, which means you must plan your attacks and make sure enemies can’t dodge them. In XAM, the skill of the player is the most important aspect, and will be the reason your team wins.

As the game is currently in Early Access, the gameplay and mechanics may change significantly. At the time of this writing the game has 8 characters and 3 different arenas.

Robocraft

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Robocraft

Robocraft is a mash up between the building awesomeness of Minecraft and a PvP vehicular combat game like World of Tanks. Throw them into the pit together and you get this amazing free to play robot shooter. The name of the game is building, driving and fighting. Build your vehicle, add your own wheels, jets, guns, wings, whatever, and take it into intense online team battles.

In Robocraft there are over 100 cubes and components to collect, which you can use to make over a million different robot designs. Your goal is to find out which works best for your play-style and to use it to your advantage. In the game you can form platoons and battle on the same team with your friends, save your robots to a garage in cloud, so you can access them from any PC via the Robocloud, and most importantly, everything required to get to the very top of the rankings in Robocraft can be gained for free.

Bleach Online

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Bleach Online

Bleach Online is a browser-based, strategy MMORPG from GoGames set in the popular Bleach manga/anime universe. The game is considered non-canon as any of the events in the game occur independent of the original manga series. In the game, you play as one of six selectable characters from three available classes. The game opens with your character waking up after a 1,000 year slumber on a strange Human World with no memories of who/where you are. It’s up to you to interact with many of the Bleach Universe’s most popular characters to regain your memories and save your friends who get mistaken as rebels!

As is standard fare for many MMORPGs of the browser genre, Bleach Online requires very little in terms of actual player involvement. It follows in the same vein as games such as Knight’s Fable, Angel Alliance and League of Angels, where the narrative plays out as less of a game and more as an interactive story book. Players will auto-path to their quest destinations and will watch battles play out automatically. Fans of this style of gameplay will feel right at home in Bleach Online’s colorful, gorgeously-animated world — permitting that they can put up with poor localization. Grammatically poor sentences are by no means a deal-breaker, but they do nothing to help the game’s already shallow immersion.

Giving credit where it’s due, Bleach Online allows the player to choose the formation of their team for battle, thereby altering how some battles might play out. This feature, coupled with equipment upgrades and modifications, gives the player the opportunity to maximize their Battle Power (the accumulation of factors such as health, defense, health, etc and the sole determining factor for battles). This is important not only for the game’s main quest, but also for MMO features like PvP and guilds.

Being a free to play MMORPG, Bleach Online does incorporate microtransactions, which help players progress faster or unlocks features, like the ability to skip battle sequences entirely. While limiting certain features via paywall is obnoxious, it doesn’t necessarily hinder the overall experience. In fact, purchasable add-ons never feel forced or obligatory for progression.

While Bleach Online doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, fans of the manga/anime series may find enjoyment in interacting with the series’ characters. Even those new to the universe will find a decent story (if not somewhat incoherent) and beautiful graphics/animations to keep them entertained for a decent chunk of time. That said, hardcore gamers looking for anything more than a superficial, extreme-casual experience should probably look elsewhere.

Original Blood

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Original Blood

Original Blood is a 3D Browser MMORPG from GameSpace Entertainment. The game takes place after a great war which waged between the allied forces of the Humans, the Vampires and the Werewolves against the evil demons who sought destruction. Original Blood features many of the staples of the genre, including dungeons, raids, events, mounts, pets, PvP, guilds and more.

Starting out, you choose between three different races (Humans, Vampires, or Werewolves) and four classes (Knight, Mage, Rogue, Sage). Your selection of race will determine which classes you have access to and storyline you follow. Beyond that, differences in races are fairly superficial and won’t really alter gameplay mechanics to any large extent. Each class has unique attributes and stats that will influence the way that you approach battle — the Mage being ranged, while the Knight is close combat, for example. Your avatar can be further personalized via many of your typical MMO customizations such as hair style, hair color, face shape, etc., though these features have no effect on character stats.

Original Blood is very much an MMO like World of Warcraft. Everything from the cartoony art style, to its passive combat system seems to take a page out of the MMORPG juggernaut’s playbook. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it manages to take a WoW-like experience and cram it into your browser window — and it does it totally F2P. Separate in-game shops are in place, one where you can spend coins earned from quests and an optional cash shop where you can purchase helpful items for real-world currency.

Admittedly, Original Blood does inhibit exploration through the inclusion of auto-pathing. The feature is completely optional, but the mapping system is clunky and doesn’t allow you to place navigation markers, meaning auto-pathing is the only reliable means of knowing where to go. It’s the reality of the limitations of a browser MMO, but it makes the best

Despite its technical limitations, Original Blood is a fun and surprisingly robust browser MMORPG experience. It’s certainly not a game-changer, but when compared to other browser experiences like Knight’s Fable or League of Angels, it’s a valiant effort worth checking out.

To find out more about Original Blood’s classes and character creation, check out our Original Blood Guide – Classes and Character Customization Walkthrough!

Gigantic

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Gigantic

A team action game where heroes battle alongside a massive guardian in a fight for supremacy. Join the fight and be one of the first to try Gigantic! A mystical bond connects you and four teammates to your guardian, a magical behemoth too powerful for a single mortal to defeat. Protect your guardian as your team charges across the battlefield, then see it crush your enemies underfoot. Physics-based abilities let you invent new ways to amaze your friends and frustrate your enemies. The element of surprise is key as you use WASD controls to sprint, dodge, aim, destroy barriers, hurdle obstacles, and leap from danger to safety. The world of Gigantic is a world of mystery, where airships soar over ancient ruins and a fantasy empire is yours for the taking. Charge into battle and lead your guardian to victory. Gigantic rewards the daring, the clever, and the swift.

Choose a heavy-metal juggernaut, a stealthy acrobat, a fire-breathing sorcerer—or something else that matches your play style. Pick attack, defense, and just-plain-cool upgrades on the fly, then surprise your enemies with a combo they never saw coming.

Your guardian is the biggest ally you’ll ever have. With your team’s help, the guardian drives back your enemies, destroying and reshaping the battlefield as it goes. But your enemies have a guardian, too! Work together to overpower the enemy guardian, then strike its heart when you have the chance. And beware! Each guardian has its own attacks and tactics–everything from impaling tail spikes to destructive tornadoes.

Battleborn

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Battleborn

Battleborn is a next-gen hero-shooter brought to you by the creators of the award-winning and best-selling Borderlands franchise. In Battleborn’s distant future, the only hope for the last star in a dying universe is a new breed of warriors, who must put aside their differences to drive back an unstoppable menace. Choose from a myriad of powerful heroes and fight together alongside your friends in an intense co-operative campaign, or battle against them in fast-paced competitive multiplayer matches.

Riding High

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Riding High

Riding High is a realistic horse MMO game from Dreamringer Studios. The game has many islands, where you can dive, camp basicly do ANYTHING you like! Its a free roam realsitic horse game, developing 3D horse models with realistic movements and actions. You will be able to customize your own home, character and horse. You can basicly just do anything, travel from island to island and not to forget its online! So you will able to play with your friends. The game is developing, a browser game and a 3D beta is coming put soon. But they can only release the game with our help!

Crusaders of Solaria

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Crusaders of Solaria

Crusaders of Solaria is a fast-paced, side-scrolling brawler MMORPG set in a high fantasy world. Choose between a Knight and Mage, hire mercenaries to form a party, and charge into battle. Form enduring friendships and make mortal enemies as you forge a story of your very own.

Key Features:

Guilds and mass-scale guild wars

Mercenaries you can hire to join your party

Pets you can train that follow you into battle and boost your stats

World bosses requiring multiple players to take down

FIFA World

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FIFA World

FIFA World is a free to play football MMO that launched worldwide on May 20th 2014. FIFA World is based off the popular FIFA series currently available on consoles.

FIFA is arguably EA Sport’s most popular sports franchise around the world, so it only makes sense that EA would adopt the free-to-play model to a game featuring the world’s most popular sport.

FIFA World takes a lot of queues from its console brethren in presentation and gameplay although the berth of features, gameplay mechanics, and graphical fidelity are lessened somewhat.

Much of this is intentional as FIFA World is not intended to cannibalize on the sales of the main franchise. Instead, the game proves to be a solid, casual football experience that can be picked up and played by sports fans of all skill levels.

There are two principle game modes: Ultimate Team and League Teams. Ultimate Team lets you create your own football club, complete with uniform, game ball, and stadium customization. You start off with a rather mediocre roster of real players and can obtain player packs through spending real money or currency earned through matches to mix and match players across various leagues.

New team members can be bid on, bought immediately, or traded to and from other players.

Players can then take their team into matches against the computer or against real players. Win enough matches and you receive more money to spend on further team customization.

League Teams mode is online-only and lets you chose your favorite real-world football club in one-on-one matches against live players. I appreciate that real-world clubs are included in the game, but it would be nice to play as them in single-player matches when you’re just looking to beat up on some computer AI or because you’re just looking to quickly jump in and out of a game. Also, League Team matches use match credits. Lose all of your match credits and you are unable to play for a certain amount of time. While match credits can be purchased for real money, you can also buy them with in-game currency. Being good at the game is also its own reward as winning matches helps match credits replenish faster.

Graphically, the game is a slight step behind the mainstream console titles, but this is likely due to allow for the game to be run across a variety of hardware combinations. The game looks solid enough and ran at a consistent 60 frames per second throughout.

The gameplay seems slightly simplified as well. Again, this is likely a conscious decision to broaden the appeal of the game and to also allow the game to be played without a gamepad. The game offers three control schemes – Mouse & Keyboard, Keyboard Only, and Controller. To be brutally honest, I hated the Keyboard and Keyboard & Mouse control schemes. While they were functional, they were far from accurate, and I never felt like I had full control over what I was doing. Plugging in a game pad makes FIFA World feel much more akin to the console games, and it’s much better for it. I’m not saying the other control schemes are impossible to learn, but save yourself some frustration and invest in a game pad if you want to truly enjoy FIFA World.

Overall, FIFA World is a fun time for football fans, and for a free download, it’s certainly worth a look. Check out the game on Origin or head over to easportsfifaworld.com to learn more about it. If you enjoyed this first impressions video, click the like button and subscribe to our Youtube channel for more gaming news, reviews, giveaways, and other general randomness.

The Stomping Land

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The Stomping Land

The Stomping Land is a multiplayer survival game about living in a world with dinosaurs. In the game you will learn about surviving in a world that is inhabited by the most deadly creatures that earth has ever seen. You will meet others and form tribes, set up your camps to defend yourself from dinosaurs, and hunt down the historic beasts to become the most dominant tribe on the island.

The Stomping Land Guides

The Stomping Land Crafting Guide
The Stomping Land Expertise Earning Guide
The Stomping Land Tips, Tricks and FAQs
The Stomping Land Dinosaur Taming Guide