There are an astounding number of Free MMO games out there on the internet. From the major developers like GPotato and Nexon, to some smaller companies players have never heard of like CyberStep. However, looking out into the sea of games is like looking at a bookshelf of books. There are titles and colors everywhere, but when looking at rows and rows of spines, it's hard to discern quality in all of the quantity. So, in order to arrive at a more conclusive decision, these games will be picked up and thoroughly played.
EDIT: For the sake of clarity, each of these games will be played over the space of a week, with a review going up every Friday, accompanied by the download of a new game. This game will be played until the subsequent Friday, when it will be reviewed, and replaced with another game.
Any readers who want to request a game are free to do so either through PM or on this thread. (Please be aware that the low-content guideline is in effect on this thread, and simply stating a game title with nothing else is likely to be reported. Please exercise caution when posting.) The restrictions are that the game is fully freeware to play. No demo or trial will be allowed, and no more than one game will be played a week.
___ Chapter 1: Dungeon Fighter Online ___
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/3/937883_122984_front.jpg
There a certain childish charm to the old arcade-style brawler. Although archaic, it's easy to remember what's so likable about a screen full of generic bad-guys and two lines of stereotypical dialog. Most 2.5D beat-em ups have very urban settings, with thugs capturing protagonists' girlfriends and flitting away through alleys lined with acrobatic thugs, martial arts punks, and often inexplicably big or fat gangsters. However, Dungeon Fighter Online has managed a fantasy setting, and has managed it... Uh... Passably.
The point of the urban setting is its fitting. There's a reason for a fight-savvy protagonist to go through hoard-after-hoard of mind-numbingly stupid villains is because it make sense for them to do so. There's solid reasoning, a single person affected in a big way, so he does a single thing that has a huge result. A single man facing an entire gang to save his personal girlfriend. It's logically sound, and functional for the setting.
When translated into an online fantasy world, the logic skews a bit. The characters each have their own motivation for going what they're doing, and it seems solid. But there are only only five possible characters. These characters can't be visually customized, which may seem like an aesthetic thing, but break immersion once there are fifty girls with jaded pasts who on eternal quests to become stronger. In the same room. And they all look the same. And fight the same. They are all the same. More to the point, why not send in entire armies to quell the demon uprising, instead of a single priest? It all seems so bizarre.
Excepting that story and premise hiccup, the title feels suitably comfortable. The pixel-based style isn't overly anime or cutesy, sticking to a more familiar style for the brawler. The settings, towns, and fields have enough variety in the long term to look like they belong with the game they're in. This means that while some games have 5 year old teddy bears with purple hair taking on demi-God demons, this game isn't one of them. The characters all look the part. In either cutscene or sprite form.
http://www.fatfoogoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dfo8.jpg
Excepting those oddities, the formula works. The same feel for the arcade game is all there, just without the unnecessary amount of change. The RPG elements don't get in the way too much, which is really what the game needs to be successful. Games like Final Fight don't need too much story or too much statistical depth, because that would compromise the simplicity of the game as a whole. Part of what makes it sell is the solidity of the basics.
This button is attack, this one defense, this one does moves, and those things are bad. From there, sword swipes, punches, kicks, throws, and bludgeoning are part of how the game entertains its players. Adding too many stats, too much equipment, too much thought ends up taking away from the simple joys of a brawler. In that way, DFO strikes a solid medium between skill-raising and equipment handling, and the unburdened fun of a quick River City Ransom run.
However, games like those have some strength in their shortness. Just a quick pick-up, the first level takes a short time, there are't too many enemies, and there's a solid variety of moves that makes gameplay uncomplicated, but deep enough to stay engaging for its limited stay. MMO games have never had the "luxury" of being short. They're constantly being patched, lengthened, updated, adjusted, but most of all, played. Games like these don't lend themselves to long-term binges. There's just not enough diversity. Fifteen thousand punches can only stay entertaining when they're thrown differently, do different things, or spray confetti on impact.
Like most MMOs, the level curve is exponentially more difficult. It means that while the first 10 or so levels are littered with incessant skill gains, the next 15 might stay fresh enough, but the next 50 won't. The dungeon's instances will all begin to look a little familiar, or take a little too long between trips back to town to sell spoils or upgrade weapons.
http://media.curse.com/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00/00/53/44/77/09june24-DFO5.jpg-720x540.jpg
The game is also browser-based, meaning that it cannot be launched without a browser window open. Not normally a problem, but the game has a client which must be downloaded. Which means the client is on the hard drive, not stored online. But they game still needs a browser window. Not necessarily a fault, more an annoyance. Although the annoyances don't end there.
The game's natural resolution is very low, requiring a command (//window) to open, though no prompt or option in-game to reveal such a feature. It means that the game will automatically launch in full screen with a comically low resolution for modern machines. Furthermore, the game only operates servers in the following places: North America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China. While the server hosting placement isn't completely unusual, the restrictions are still present. If an Australian or European player tries to load any of the other servers, they'll likely be met with an incurable "Unable to Connect" error.
If the review seems a little nitpicky, its for a good reason. Dungeon Fighter Online is unique among many online games in that it's a unique idea, with good potential and just as good execution. If it weren't for the almost omnipresent plague of little faults, the game could easily be as successful as a single player experience as it could a multiplayer online one. This fault is the game's biggest failing, in that its an online game that doesn't really work as an online game, on a fundamental level. From the restriction to instances to the inflexibility to global market, the game is good, but the online falls a bit short. There was never a need to make a great arcade game into a functional, but only "good" online game.
Bottom Line: When the restrictions and necessities of the online game are taken away, the core would make for a better offline game, and that little bit of squandered potential hurts the whole process in subtle but pivotal ways.
EDIT: For the sake of clarity, each of these games will be played over the space of a week, with a review going up every Friday, accompanied by the download of a new game. This game will be played until the subsequent Friday, when it will be reviewed, and replaced with another game.
Any readers who want to request a game are free to do so either through PM or on this thread. (Please be aware that the low-content guideline is in effect on this thread, and simply stating a game title with nothing else is likely to be reported. Please exercise caution when posting.) The restrictions are that the game is fully freeware to play. No demo or trial will be allowed, and no more than one game will be played a week.
___ Chapter 1: Dungeon Fighter Online ___
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/3/937883_122984_front.jpg
There a certain childish charm to the old arcade-style brawler. Although archaic, it's easy to remember what's so likable about a screen full of generic bad-guys and two lines of stereotypical dialog. Most 2.5D beat-em ups have very urban settings, with thugs capturing protagonists' girlfriends and flitting away through alleys lined with acrobatic thugs, martial arts punks, and often inexplicably big or fat gangsters. However, Dungeon Fighter Online has managed a fantasy setting, and has managed it... Uh... Passably.
The point of the urban setting is its fitting. There's a reason for a fight-savvy protagonist to go through hoard-after-hoard of mind-numbingly stupid villains is because it make sense for them to do so. There's solid reasoning, a single person affected in a big way, so he does a single thing that has a huge result. A single man facing an entire gang to save his personal girlfriend. It's logically sound, and functional for the setting.
When translated into an online fantasy world, the logic skews a bit. The characters each have their own motivation for going what they're doing, and it seems solid. But there are only only five possible characters. These characters can't be visually customized, which may seem like an aesthetic thing, but break immersion once there are fifty girls with jaded pasts who on eternal quests to become stronger. In the same room. And they all look the same. And fight the same. They are all the same. More to the point, why not send in entire armies to quell the demon uprising, instead of a single priest? It all seems so bizarre.
Excepting that story and premise hiccup, the title feels suitably comfortable. The pixel-based style isn't overly anime or cutesy, sticking to a more familiar style for the brawler. The settings, towns, and fields have enough variety in the long term to look like they belong with the game they're in. This means that while some games have 5 year old teddy bears with purple hair taking on demi-God demons, this game isn't one of them. The characters all look the part. In either cutscene or sprite form.
http://www.fatfoogoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dfo8.jpg
Excepting those oddities, the formula works. The same feel for the arcade game is all there, just without the unnecessary amount of change. The RPG elements don't get in the way too much, which is really what the game needs to be successful. Games like Final Fight don't need too much story or too much statistical depth, because that would compromise the simplicity of the game as a whole. Part of what makes it sell is the solidity of the basics.
This button is attack, this one defense, this one does moves, and those things are bad. From there, sword swipes, punches, kicks, throws, and bludgeoning are part of how the game entertains its players. Adding too many stats, too much equipment, too much thought ends up taking away from the simple joys of a brawler. In that way, DFO strikes a solid medium between skill-raising and equipment handling, and the unburdened fun of a quick River City Ransom run.
However, games like those have some strength in their shortness. Just a quick pick-up, the first level takes a short time, there are't too many enemies, and there's a solid variety of moves that makes gameplay uncomplicated, but deep enough to stay engaging for its limited stay. MMO games have never had the "luxury" of being short. They're constantly being patched, lengthened, updated, adjusted, but most of all, played. Games like these don't lend themselves to long-term binges. There's just not enough diversity. Fifteen thousand punches can only stay entertaining when they're thrown differently, do different things, or spray confetti on impact.
Like most MMOs, the level curve is exponentially more difficult. It means that while the first 10 or so levels are littered with incessant skill gains, the next 15 might stay fresh enough, but the next 50 won't. The dungeon's instances will all begin to look a little familiar, or take a little too long between trips back to town to sell spoils or upgrade weapons.
http://media.curse.com/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00/00/53/44/77/09june24-DFO5.jpg-720x540.jpg
The game is also browser-based, meaning that it cannot be launched without a browser window open. Not normally a problem, but the game has a client which must be downloaded. Which means the client is on the hard drive, not stored online. But they game still needs a browser window. Not necessarily a fault, more an annoyance. Although the annoyances don't end there.
The game's natural resolution is very low, requiring a command (//window) to open, though no prompt or option in-game to reveal such a feature. It means that the game will automatically launch in full screen with a comically low resolution for modern machines. Furthermore, the game only operates servers in the following places: North America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China. While the server hosting placement isn't completely unusual, the restrictions are still present. If an Australian or European player tries to load any of the other servers, they'll likely be met with an incurable "Unable to Connect" error.
If the review seems a little nitpicky, its for a good reason. Dungeon Fighter Online is unique among many online games in that it's a unique idea, with good potential and just as good execution. If it weren't for the almost omnipresent plague of little faults, the game could easily be as successful as a single player experience as it could a multiplayer online one. This fault is the game's biggest failing, in that its an online game that doesn't really work as an online game, on a fundamental level. From the restriction to instances to the inflexibility to global market, the game is good, but the online falls a bit short. There was never a need to make a great arcade game into a functional, but only "good" online game.
Bottom Line: When the restrictions and necessities of the online game are taken away, the core would make for a better offline game, and that little bit of squandered potential hurts the whole process in subtle but pivotal ways.