Seal Online: Blade of Destiny - Review

Seal Online. The name of this MMORPG means a lot to me, as I've had many fond memories playing this on my under-powered Pentium Celeron PC during my younger years. For its time, it was a game that paved the way for many different possibilities in MMORPGs. Since the game’s initial English release in 2007, the game has had a re-launch called Seal Online: Eternal Destiny, which featured a new monster survival mode and a new hunter class. They also decided that it would be a good idea to wipe the ENTIRE player database clean for this re-launch, which I’m sure a lot of veteran players were not happy about.

Now in 2013, the game has had a second re-launch called Seal Online: Blades of Destiny, which retains all the features from the previous Seal Online while throwing in a new Black Dragon Raid and Battle Pets. It doesn't sound like much that would make new and old veterans interested in playing, and to be perfectly honest: It really isn't. This is because Seal Online is a game that has been past its prime for years now. Just about everything in Seal Online has been done in other MMORPGs and has been done better.

Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep - Preview

The Lord of the Rings universe is about to go in deep… Helm’s deep, that is. The newest expansion for LOTRO is planned to be release very soon, with many new features and additions, including new landscapes across Western Rohan, a new level cap of 95, new skills, class specs, and of course, the battle for Helm’s Deep which is centered around a huge conflict straight from the Lord of the Rings novels and movies.

To give players a glimpse into the future expansion, staff from Turbine studios invited members of the press to show off a preview of the game during its early alpha stages, and when I mean early, I mean REALLY early, as many of the new areas were still being worked on.

HeroesGo - Review

ESTGames, the publisher and developers behind the classic hack n’ slash MMORPG “Cabal Online” has recently brought over a not-so-new MORPG to the F2P market. The name of this MORPG was recently known as “Howling Sword” in South Korea. With bright visuals, anime inspired characters and an arcade style approach, Howling Sword provided a more authentic hack n’ slash experience. Unfortunately, Howling Sword was not very well received in South Korea, and was then taken offline within a few short years.
After some re-structuring, ESTGames decided to give Howling Sword another shot for US and EU territories, but with a new name: HeroesGo. However, with so many MORPGs already offering similar gameplay, visuals and features, does HeroesGo deserve a second chance?

GoD Factory: Wingmen - First Look

Slowly emerging from the dark depths of the galaxy, the space combat genre is slowly making a comeback, and a new indie development group named Nine Dots Canada is looking to create a revolutionary space combat game for the modern age, and they call it “GoD Factory: Wingmen”: a 4 vs 4 competitive space combat game in which the goal is to destroy the enemy's carrier ship while defending your own.  Through the power of the Unity engine, the game features ships from four difference races, fast paced action and hardcore gameplay that are solely made for fans of the genre.

Favorite game - Aces Wild

This game. This freaking game. It's only been a whole day since I first got this game, but it's quite easily the best beat 'em up I've played in a long while, second only to Dragon's Crown on the PS3.
I saw this game being posted on a certain message board the other day, and decided to watch the release trailer for it. I was instantly blown away by how crazy it looked, and so I decided to give the demo version a try.

After one small session with the game's demo, I instantly fell in love with it and bought a copy. Aces Wild is the result of what happens when you mix Dragonball Z, Battletoads and any bullet-hell Shump you can think of. The gameplay is easy to learn, hard to master, is fast-paced as hell and will make your hands screams in agony, but you'll enjoy every second of it. Unlike most beat 'em ups, Aces Wild is more vertical and has a very free-form battle system where you can dash all over the screen, knock and juggle enemies into the air, perform two different kinds of counter attacks to negate all sorts of damage and other gameplay elements that make the game highly unique and entertaining. It also has a risk vs. reward system where defeating enemies while taking minimal hits will increase your damage rank and score multiplier, but as your rank increases, so the the amount of damage you take from enemies but you also take more damage, so you need to stay on your toes whenever you're playing well.

In the later levels, the game really gets intense when you have to pay close attention to your positioning on the screen, as enemies will spring traps and limit your area of movement. Not to mention that enemies can also perform the same moves that you as a player are capable of, including counters, dodges and dashes. This game will have no problem handing your ass back to you on a silver platter and you may get frustrated a bit, but it's a great feeling when you really start to pick up on enemy attack patterns and nail that final blow on an enemy which sends them flying halfway across the planet.

If you're a fan of Dragonball Z, bullet-hell Shumps or just Beat 'em Up games in general, you owe it to yourself to buy this game, or at least try out the demo on the game's website. I can't wait to see how this game will expand in the future, possibly with game modes, characters and the promise of netplay co-op.

This game is easily the best $10 I've spent all year.

Rigde Racer: Driftopia - Impressions

Namco Bandai, a legendary game developer and publisher, known for such titles including Tekken, Ace Combat and Pacman, are now breaking into the F2P scene. With their recent outing of turning the Tekken series into a F2P-viable game, they’re now looking to give their Ridge Racer series the same treatment with Ridge Racer: Driftopia, a F2P version of last year’s previous title: Ridge Racer: Unbounded. While the idea sounds good on paper, after several hours of play, I have come to the awful conclusion that this game, in is current state, is quite possibly the worst example of how to structure a F2P game ever.

ChronoBlade - Beta Review

Facebook gaming is about to get a little brutal with this recent title created by developer and publisher group “nWay”. ChronoBlade is a 2.5D multiplayer online beat ‘em up that features fast-paced, arcade style action, mixed with multiplayer co-op mayhem, all made possible through the power of Adobe Flash 3D.

Now multiplayer beat ‘em ups are very rare in this day and age, and even rarer are the ones that can be played online. With the recent departure of Nexon’s Dungeon Fighter Online for North America, the itch of combo heavy combat started to linger on me. With a quick glance at what ChronoBlade had to offer, I was hoping it could scratch that itch.

Onigiri - Alpha Test Impressions

From the land of the rising sun comes a brand new F2P title that’s all about the land of the rising sun. Onigiri is an ancient Japanese themed MMORPG where players can battle against creatures based on Japanese myth and folklore, all while pulling in a diverse cast of characters to partner up with.

Recently, CyberStep hosted an alpha test that was solely focused on testing out the game’s party mode and latency issues. With only a few days to give the game a try, I jumped in on it from day one.