A critique of my critiques

[Stormanne]

The last few months I've been trying out some of the other F2P games on the market. For the most part, the reviews I've been writing have been for my guildies. Now, I'm opening my amateur attempts at video game reviewing to you, the DDO public. You'll note that DDO is not among my reviews. The reason is this is my main game for a reason and is a basis for comparison to the games listed. Some of the reviews are short and sweet, others more in depth and thought out...which should tell you how much attention the games got from me. So, without further ado, flame away and pick me apart (I'm doing this in hopes of improving my technique and becoming more informative in what I write)

(Lifted from my post on the League of Extraordinary Hams guildportal forums)

Hellgate: Global - Hellgate Repackaging of Hellgate: London from a few years ago. I know Metal is familiar with this game as one of his friends (Rhenne) worked on it. Not a bad looking game. Real time combat, fair number of classes that are all different, and a fairly deep crafting system. But, they want to nickel and dime you with the items mall. You buy item mall currency from the developer, but you don't know how much a bundle of coin costs until you actually accept the transaction (I'm guessing since I'm not going to blindly buy something without knowing the cost first). The general chat channel is under a deluge of Palladium (plat) Sellers, so much so that you generally have to hold conversations via guild or group chat. C-

Vindictus - VIndictus Fantasy hack and slash with high quality modeling, movement, and gore. Powered by Valve's Source engine (Half Life 2, Counter Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2), the game looks fantastic in the trailers and gameplay vids on youtube. Unfortunately, I am yet to actually play as a glitch in the code sets off Anti-Virus precautions and shuts down the program. So, the work around on the games forums is to turn off the AV software (not going to happen). Claims real time combat, but no actual experience yet. F (possibly higher, waiting to see if they release a patch to correct AV glitch).

Final Fantasy XI - FFXI While not free to play, I revisited this game, seven years after I let my subscription lapse, using a 14 day free trial. Visually, it hasn't held up as well as I'd hoped. Doesn't look bad, but the graphics engine is not designed for HD resolutions and bogs down often. Odd control schemes compared to what I'm used to now and an over reliance on the mouse and menus for combat made me realize that this one is in my past and will remain there. D-

APB Reloaded - APB Reloaded Crooks vs. Cops MMO with strong First Person Shooter mechanics and open world, no choice PvP. Think Grand Theft Auto the MMO. It makes good use of the Unreal Engine 2. Unfortunately, in its desire to have a very FPS feel, it has fallen victim to one of the plagues of FPS games...Hackers. The Unreal Engine is easily manipulated because the code must be stored locally on the end users machine, and anyone with a PC copy of Unreal 2 has the source development kit. A simple script change in the SDK can be copied and pasted into the local code for APB and then used in the live environment online. Quests are designed around the Cops and Robbers theme and therefore every quest puts you in confrontation with players who are of opposite sides as you. Left alone, the different "classes" are well balanced and the game presents a level playing field. Get in an encounter with a hacker, and a low level mission turns into a bloodbath. Gamersfirst are well aware of the problem and are attempting to stay ahead of the hackers, but success is limited. B- (when playing it with a group of people who play it straight) D- (when grouped/encountering hackers)

DC Universe Online - DCUO I played DCUO at launch back in January. Game was fairly shallow and the servers were merged within a month. You can tell this game was designed from the ground up with consoles in mind. Limited number of hotbar attacks and simplistic movements lean toward the limitations of a controller. Combat is real time with a fair variety of fighting styles. You pick your powers and fighting styles separately. Initial character creation is fairly customizable (in looks, stats are static and based on powers) with more outfits earned as rewards and vault raids. PvP is strictly voluntary, but does offer rewards. The general feeling is that the game begins a level cap (30). Since going free to play, the server (they condensed down to a single server for PC and another for PS3) is busy and they've added a bit of depth and content, with more to come. Focus is still on end game raiding and alerts, but still a fun time with the right group of people to play with. B+

Age of Conan: Unchained - Age of Conan Stylistic and visceral. Takes more from Robert Howards books than from Arnold's movies. High quality graphics with visceral, real time combat that includes decapitations and disembowelment. High fantasy akin to DDO with more focus on melee than casting, even with the casting classes. Magic is more primal with reliance on elements and deities. Parts of the game are single player in nature and can disrupt the flow of a good group. B

Star Trek Online - Star Trek Online STO is a soloist dream game. Instead of working your way up the rankings of duty officers on a Starfleet vessel and competing against other players for promotions, you start off as a newly assigned ensign whose first mission lands you in the captains chair of your own ship. The tutorial is the mission that ends with you pulling off a Kirk-ish (Think the new Star Trek remake movie) rescue of the actual captain of the ship. But, the ship is yours from the get go as you name it when you create your character (Mine was the USS Extraordinary Ham). You also begin creating your personal crew during the tutorial, with additional crew members made available as purchasable commodities or mission rewards.

Graphically, STO is everything you'd expect from a recent release game (ie, the last three years). Details are good, lines are crisp, and models are as realistic as you're going to get with the Cryptic engine. The ships look like designs taken right out of Roddenberry's note book and fit the timeline very well. The create a ship feature is top notch. As with any Cryptic game, character creation is the best feature of the game. They even take it up a notch be allowing you to create your own race this time around. While I did play with this feature for hours, I went with a straight human as they have the best bonuses and extra feats (can anyone say DDO rip off).

The controls of the game are broken down into three archetypes-
1. Out of ship exploration and combat. Very straight forward MMO fare. Nothing that's going to catch anyone off guard. Combat is on the hot bars and movement is relegated to WASD with space bar for jump and CTRL for crouch. The closest thing to an innovation would be the quick switching from ranged to hand to hand combat...that requires you to click an on-screen icon since it is not able to be macroed or hotkeyyed. The enemy AI is lacking here, with even the "genius" mobs being relegated to "Kobold's on casual" effectiveness.
2. In ship exploration. Space is vast and traveling through it in STO gives that feeling of vastness. Especially since you have to earn Warp levels, so travel several hundred light years at "Full Impulse" takes a while. It is also here that you will most likely "group" with other players. There are many missions where you must do research and the game gives you only the very vaguest of coordinates to find your objectives. So, multiple ships moving through an area in a grid pattern is the surest way to not spend hours and hours searching for a single blip on the radar.
3. In ship combat. This is where you truly gain an appreciation for the job Cryptic did with STO. Beginning levels have few combat encounters, but they feel like they would for a new captain. The ship, at low levels, is sluggish and has few offensive capabilities. As you gain levels, your ship does as well, creating the illusion of being a better captain. Combat is as vast as the space you are fighting in, with enemies actively trying to flank you and attack from both above and below. For everything the AI is lacking in the out of ship combat, it has in spades here and will keep you on your toes is you enter an encounter unawares. You can tell that the combat team really put their heart and soul into the space combat. Now if only they had shown as much dedication to the rest of the game.

my grade of STO - C+

So, I downloaded Fallen Earth, the newly Free2Play, post-apocalyptic, third or first person, real-time combat, Fallout wannabe MMO. When I say newly free 2 play, I mean newly. It launched its F2P service on Tuesday, and in turn is experiencing a lag inducing gluttony of new players. The game is completely free to play when it comes to content. No quest lines are restricted or hidden. All items in the store are convenience or short cuts, with nothing that gives an outright advantage. Most powerful items are crafted and sold by the players, giving crafting a large emphasis. PvP and faction play an important part in the game in the later levels, but I am yet to get that far. There are no set classes either, train up attributes and skills as you see fit.

Single instance, open world game that has a nice split between sandbox and themepark MMO. The world is semi persistant. You cannot repeat quests and the end results of those quests follow your character. Controls are a little wonky, but nothing that about a half an hour of tooling around with won't get you used to ( I find the game easier to navigate using a first person shooter style control scheme). While not nearly polished enough to be considered a main game, not a bad distraction for when you're not feeling the DDO mojo. I'll be spending a little time here and would love you all to join me for some fun. Grade so far - B

[whereispowderedsilve]

Don't forget about Lineage 2 & Rift is F2P up to level 20 as is WOW! I think Perfect World may have went F2P as well!

Guild Wars 2 soonish & the Never winter MMO as well hopefully! :P! ! Lolz!

[2x4]

Nice job.

My feedback:

Change the parts where it is obvious your talking to your guildies. And perhaps move away from the first person style of reporting maybe move in and out from a couple view points but keep an overall third person reporting style when you get to the ratings, descriptions of the game, game environment, game mechanics etc ...

You may want to develop a common structure for laying out your reviews of each game so you develop a personal style that is all your own. One that people will relate to you. Perhpas a unique quip "This game is a Deater" and explain the quip. (I made up Deater just to illustrate)


Also, maybe comment on what the developers intended with the game from their point of view and comment on how successfull they were in achieving their goals.


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