[AVAST, there be spoilers ahead.]

So, Modern warfare 2 finally dropped. As it happens, most people think its a very good game. But one thing that dropped far before the game itself was the heavily violent and controversial level “No Russian”, in which you assume the role of an undercover CIA agent who is tasked with befriending evil Russian du jour Makarov by helping him massacre dozens of civilians at an airport. But obviously, most laymen heard the words “airport, massacre, and civilians” and of course jumped to the conclusion that Modern Warfare 2 could be re-named “Terrorist Massacre of Doom” and that it would be raising a new generation of blood-lusting mercenaries. So, the media got bitchy, Germany got censor-y, and Fox News got crappy. Regrettably, it was to be expected.

I for one wasn't really fussed by the gratuitous acts of violence on unarmed civilians. I thought the entire mission was an absolute blast, its truly a great piece of video game story telling and the subject matter it deals with just shows how far video games have come as an art form. Killing civilians has never been much of a problem for me too. Sometimes it happens by accident in a heated GTA gunfight on the street, or sometimes you want to silence the stupid beggar women in Assassin's Creed with a blade in the spleen, but it never really hurt me morally. The fact that I'm British also makes me less of a “OMG 9/11!!!!” than perhaps more than a few Americans are, so the terrorism aspect of the level didn't really affect me either.



But in this blog post, I'm not defending Modern Warfare's 2 grisly subject matter or violent nature, oh no. Today, I will be defending it from Anthony Burch, who's latest Rev Rant took the narrative and interactive components of this mission to town and gave them a thorough drubbing. I do respect Anthony's opinion and his points are certainly valid, but there were one or two things that I didn't really agree with and were probably a bit unfair towards the scene as a whole.

One of the first points he makes in the video is that, despite the lack of freedom in linear narrative games and the fact that you aren't allowed to do certain things in order to keep the game's story together, the concept of them still work, since generally, the things you aren't allowed to do are the things that you don't want to do in the first place, for example, shooting Alyx Vance in the face whilst playing Half-Life 2. This isn't allowed as it would butt-fuck the story no end, but since the game characterizes her well, its not high on your to-do list. He then goes on to criticize MW2, as he himself was forced to keep to the story of the game, not because he was doing something he wanted to do (like NOT killing Alyx Vance), but because he was being forced to do something he DIDN'T want to do, that is, killing the civilians and staying in character by Makarov. In the end, he tried to take down the terrorists and blow his cover but was angered that he was given a 'game over' screen when he did that urged him to stay in character.



He certainly implied that this scene was to blame for his urges of justice, and it certainly is, but not fully. Like Half-Life 2 giving Alyx Vance good enough characterization to make you NOT want to shoot her, Modern Warfare 2 should've been drumming into your head that staying undercover is of the utmost importance, so as to make you not feel like blowing your cover. This is not the scene's fault, this is more the fault of every second of plot prior to the massacre. Since the general plot has not done a good job of telling you that you 100% definitely SHOULD NOT blow your cover, you aren't as motivated to do so, just like if Alyx Vance had been a bitch in Half-Life, you'd be more motivated to blow her face off with a point-blank shotgun blast. Its not the scene that should be blamed for your selfless act, its most definitely the fact that the plot as a whole hasn't immersed you enough to make you carry out a devilish massacre. Maybe a better written and more immersive plot would have, but the point I'm making is that the “No Russian” scene shouldn't be fully blamed for this.

His next criticism was that the game forces you to play it in its way, and that this was “bullshit”. Er, what? As far as single-player campaigns go, the Call of Duty series would probably win awards for linearity, and yet Anthony seems shocked that doing something the total opposite to the objectives of the mission brought a game over screen to his face. Its a simple objective: “Follow Makarov's lead.” You shoot one of his buddies, objective failed, game over, just like how if the objective is “Protect Mr. X” and you shoot Mr. X in the face, you will also get a game over sequence. Anthony seemed to be livid that this scripted, linear sequence wasn't allowing him any choice, but why he would expect THIS one section of the game to give him choices where the other sections do not is puzzling. In the end, you go from point A to point B whilst following the objectives of the game, which is the basis of pretty much the entire Call of Duty series. Just because this time your forced to do something you perhaps have an issue with rather than killing unambiguously evil baddies, doesn't mean that Infinity Ward should break their whole philosophy of game design and give you the choice to perhaps alter the story entirely. And if you really, REALLY had issues with the slaughter of innocents, then maybe you should've taken the game's advice and skipped the scene instead.

Anthony also criticizes the end of the mission, saying that he felt betrayed by the fact that his playing of the part of terrorist did nothing to avert the threat of World War 3. Well, you should feel betrayed considering...you got betrayed. But had you played the game in the way is was meant to be played you might've found this twist like the rest of us – bloody brilliant and unexpected.

Anthony goes on about the nature of interactivity and such but I don't really think that's the point of this scene. This whole mission is, at its heart, a glorified cutscene. Had Anthony simply watched the massacre as if it were an FMV he might've found that it would've been very much more enthralling, but the fact that he himself was given the gun and chosen to be an actor in this scene rather than an observer changed the whole tone of it. Like he said, it was a SCRIPTED sequence, and he chose not to follow the script. What would happen if an actor didn't follow his script? They'd shout cut and start the scene again. Just like what happens with this mission. You can go ahead and ad-lib like Anthony did but then the experience isn't as good, yet following your lines to the letter let you take advantage of the brilliant writer you have on the staff.



Ok, I'm gonna cut that metaphor before it gets out of control, but hopefully a lot of you get where I'm coming from. With linear narrative games, you have to follow the linear narrative, you have to follow the script that the game has made for you, and that's just how it goes. As you can see with Half-Life, Bioshock, and other brilliant linear games, it quite often works.

It does seem like this is a personal attack against Anthony, but it isn't. I assume that there are others who also had an epiphany and tried to stop the massacre and failed, only then to find that completing the massacre ended in the same outcome. But had you just followed the plot of the game and “Followed Makarov's Lead”, then you would've had an awesome experience and a gave the game a pat on the back for such a brilliant twist, instead of the betrayal that you might be feeling now.

Basically, there are two types of people in this scene: those who play out the scene killing civilians or those who try to enforce justice and change the course of the game by trying to end the massacre. This is a message to those in the latter group: you're doing it wrong.

Miles “Tails” Prower is a character who's taken a considerable amount of flak since his conception. Charitably, people describe him as an annoying whiny bitch, and uncharitably, some people would describe him as someone who should die of a very painful and long illness. I know some Brits would probably have voted against the fox-hunting ban just to be able to unload a shotgun into his face, and pin his two tails on their wall as a sign of “saving videogames”. He gets in the way, he always gets kidnapped, he's Sonic's bitch, he never contributes – all accusations leveled at the yellow fox. Its safe to say, most people would choose Sonic over Tails every single time.

As such, most people are stupid idiotic morons.

Tails is superior to Sonic in near every respect and its surprising that the general populace are so blind and ignorant not to notice, let alone that they are moronic enough to make claims that he is infinitely worse. Follow me, kids, as I explain to your puny, mushy brains why Tails should be the subject of many fangirl's inappropriate crushes, rather than Sonic.

He's loyal

I remember a time where loyalty was rewarded with feasts and wine and prostitutes and special commendations from King Henry VII, but apparently Tails' loyalty to Sonic is not worthy of praise, but more worthy of comments of how he'd rather be inside Sonic rather than just running behind him. My point: what's wrong with a bit of bro-mance*? Regardless, no matter which path Sonic takes, whether it gets Tails gets crushed, drowned, spiked, burned, Tails will always follow behind, many times shaking off death itself just to stay with his friend. And is Sonic loyal to Tails? Fuck no. Sure, maybe he needs Tails' help to get to a higher place he can't reach, but after he's there he shoots off in a blue blur with neither a farewell nor tip of the hat, and certainly no gratitude whatsoever. Will Sonic ever save Tails when he hits a spot of bother? Probably, but he certainly wouldn't be happy about it, unlike Tails, who's always willing to lend a hand to his ungrateful hedgehog cohort.

*This statement is probably easier to agree with if you ignore the fact that both Sonic and Tails are both non-human, both different species, and both under the age of consent.

He's a brainbox

Tails is described as a mechanical prodigy who rivals Dr. Robotnik, and that certainly proves useful in the world of Sonic. He knows the logistics of Eggman's robots, he knows the working of engines and computers, hell, he built a bloody shape-shifting plane! Things like this might actually be able to combat a more violent foe – hey, if you were being oppressed by an army of robots, what would you choose, a shape-shifting fighter plane or the ability to run fast? Exactly. And its not like Sonic could come up with any clever plans or create robots, all he knows is “run fast, get rings, PROFIT” and half the time Tails has to pop down with his plane when Sonic “genius” plan ends up failing. Its a testament to real life, probably, the smart ones do the brunt of the work while the famous ones take the credit.

He can fly



When it truly comes down to it, flying is a far better skill than speed. Sure, with speed you can get places quick, but your run will come crashing to a halt if there's a tree 5 miles in front of you that you didn't consider, and then BOOM, good luck picking up those 150 rings you just dropped. Flying, on the other hand, is a much more enjoyable pasttime. You get to see the lovely environment, you get to see the lay of the land, or the position of your enemies, and obstacles are reduced to a minimum. And I can imagine the whole experience would be bloody relaxing. Sonic's run would stop the minute he reaches a coast or sizeable lake, whereas Tails could just hover over without a problem (although he'd probably need his plane for the sea.) And even if he didn't fancy flying, large bodies of water would hold no problem because...

He can swim

Tails can swim, Sonic can't. And that's useful considering how much water you encounter in the Sonic games. So, Sonic, you at the bottom of a well? That's a shame. You'll just have to chill down here for a bit, oh and did that last bubble of yours resemble the number five? That other one looks like a four as well, this is SURREAL. Oh no. Your dead. Conversely, Tails is not a retard and could simply swim out of the well like a normal anthropomorphic woodland animal would, leaving leaving Sonic's water bloated bluer-than-normal corpse behind. Of course, he would never do that. He's too loyal.

By the way, I'm omitting the fact that, in addition to the ability to fly and swim, Tails could also run just as fast as Sonic in earlier Sonic titles. Just giving Sonic fans a fighting chance to argue back.

Foxes are better than Hedgehogs

Have you ever heard the expression “as cunning as a fox”? Well there you go. You will also notice how you probably can't think of an expression of the form “as [adjective here] as a hedgehog”. And even if you could, it would be a crappy adjective. Foxes stealth around at night and kill chickens in near total secrecy, whereas hedgehogs walk onto motorway roads and get turned into a spiky red stain on the tarmac. Who would you rather be? Presumably, the non-dead animal would cater to your interests more. Plus, at least foxes can kill things. Hedgehogs get scared, they roll into the fetal position, and do nothing for 5 hours. Very cool.

I'm very aware that these characteristics are not indicitive of neither Sonic nor Tails' character, but it stands to reason that Tails > Sonic, since Fox > Hedgehog. Don't argue with the irrefutable logic.

Tails triumphed through adversity

It saddens me to say that Tails was bullied as a child, bullied for his freakish twin tails. But now he's got more friends than you could shake a stick at and is proving to be quite the successful little mammal. He didn't let the bullying get him down, is my point. Sonic didn't have to deal with all that shit, his blue fur and freaky trainers apparently met critical acclaim with his other animal friends. So its no surprise that Sonic is the hero of the land, but Tails reached second place in the hierachy even with a huge opening disadvantage. And it's always better to work for something than to have it placed in your lap, right?

He's OMGIWANNACRUSHHISLITTLEHEADTOGETTOTHECANDY cute



I mean, come on. LOOK AT HIM. He's adorable, and, as much as I hate the use of the word, he's as close to kawaii as you can get. And you try crushing Sonic's head to get to the candy. You'd do yourself an injury on his stupid spikes, and even if you got to crush his head you wouldn't find candy. You'd probably fine heroin or something, which, admittedly, some might find better than candy. But heroin isn't cute. Candy is. Again, undebatable logic.

Sonic would probably be a wanker in real life

Suspend your disbelief for a second and assume that you and Sonic we're friends and went out to a club. You know what he'd do? He'd go to where three dressed-up sluts we're dancing and try to shag each one of them, leaving you at the bar looking awkward, slowly sipping your drink of choice. I'm not saying that the act of sexual intercourse with females isn't cool, but the act of screwing your mates over to do so is uncool in every respect. Now, go to a club with Tails, and he'd probably be considerate enough to introduce you to the girls he's been chatting too. And you'd feel wanted and part of the social group. Epic win, and maybe sex will be on the cards for you, good sir.

Well, I kinda digressed with that point a bit, but the main thing is Tails is just...nicer. He's considerate, kind-hearted, and he'll never let you down. Sonic, on the other hand, would screw you over at a moment's notice, probably even less than that if there's any chance to woo the hot chicas.

Yellow is better than Blue

Blue is associated with rain, cold temperatures, and sadness, whereas yellow is associated with the sun, warmth (but not uncomfortably warm) and custard, which is awesome. Again, not indicitive of Sonic's or Tails' characters, but Yellow > Blue implies Tails > Sonic. For the third and final time, don't even try to argue with my airtight logicality.

Tails would probably be a video gamer

Tails was bullied for his twin tails, he can't fly for too long, meaning he's not very fit, and he enjoys working with computers and machines. So, bullied as a youngster, unfit and unactive, can work with machines? Sounds like video gamer material to me. Ok, I'm stereotyping there, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason – because they generally fit the description. But he can also fly a plane too, so he'd be good with his hands. And he's smart, so he could blast through Portal and Braid in a second. Would Sonic play video games? Maybe, but he'd probably exclusively play games like Call of Duty 4 and be the person you immediately mute the minute the game starts. Plus, his speedy nature means he'd fuck up Left 4 Dead by going too fast and getting pounced in seconds.

Again, I'm digressing, but come on, Tails is closer to a video gamer than Sonic. And surely, since I imagine only video gamers will be reading this article, you can all respect that. And hell, even if he wasn't, if your gaming PC broke down he'd probably be able to fix it.

So there you go, 10 solid reasons why Tails kicks Sonic's arse to Death Egg and back. There's no need to thank me for freeing your from your bleak ignorance that your were surrounded in, just the fact that your mind is healed is enough payment for me. So go now, continue with your lives, safe in the knowledge of Tails' superiority, and the fact that he's probably more likely to save the world than Sonic, if he was give half a chance.



Milo Pilkington still checks his local GameStation often to see if Sonic Team have made Tails Adventure yet. He has also learned that searching for "Tails" on Google Images with safesearch off is generally a bad plan.

As with the Meet The Spy video, Valve seem to be worsening at keeping their secret videos so secret.



To put it short, this video is so brilliantly directed, so beautiful, and gives a glimpse to the apparent deeper tale of L4D2. I know I should probably be a bit more detailed but...well, the video really speaks for itself.

inb4dtoid

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/left-4-dead-2/achievements/

No new Genocidist, but a few of the Infected achievements look pretty solid.

Points of interest:
BOOMER BILE is mentioned as perhaps a new grenade?
Mini-games at the Carnival involve tests of speed and strength
The two new campaigns, Hard Rain and Dead Center are indeed real
Realism mode is an add-on mode, not a difficulty above Expert, so Easy mode w/realism looks possible
DEFRIBULATORS?

inb4dtoid

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: It might not look like I'm really on topic with this Monthly Musing, but I do have a point, so make sure you read until the end. Also, cocks. Tr00 dat.]

It stands to reason that, if you are even slightly interested in PC gaming, you will have heard of Team Fortress 2. Valve’s multiplayer magnum opus has endured critical acclaim and wonderful popularity, and rightly so, as it is one of the finest pieces of multiplayer gaming ever crafted, and the ability to tweak the game as you like and the constant influx of free updates by Valve have only served to enhance that experience.

Or have they?

Valve’s regular class updates and the ability to alter the rules of the game as you see fit via the console does add another layer of complexity to the game. But was it really needed? Have class limits and instant respawns tainted Valve’s glorious game mechanics? Have these class updates ruined the inch perfect balance that they attained with the nine classes available? Both have altered Valve’s near flawless creation, and that is what we’ve forgotten – Team Fortress 2, without addition or alteration, without mods, class updates and new weapons, is the best that is has ever been, and it’s a shame that we have all forgotten how that was.



First of all, a little history about the game. Team Fortress was originally a mod itself, based on the Quake engine. The signature cartoonish style of Team Fortress 2 was missing, but other than that, it’s business as usual – Red Team vs. Blu Team, go capture a point or capture the flag a few times to win. After being adapted for Quake, Team Fortress Classic was created as a mod for Half-Life, and became super-duper popular, with people still playing it this very day. Obviously, Valve liking the idea of making sequels to popular games, development of Team Fortress 2 began. First screens of the game were shown at 1999’s E3, a full EIGHT YEARS after the finished product made it into The Orange Box, but it was time well spent – Valve themselves said that “we quietly made three or four full games” before they hit what we know and love today.

Team Fortress 2 came out with The Orange Box and met with critical acclaim, holding scores of 92 on both Metacritic and GameRankings, with critics commenting on the good balance that the game offers. And they were right. Anyone who plays class based shooters will know that, without a balanced set of classes, the game will suddenly turn into a grief-fest. But Valve hit the balance right on the head – sure, the Heavy can turn anything that comes close into pate, but the slow movement speed makes him an easy victim for the headshot of a Sniper or the backstab of a Spy. Conversely, the Scouts quick movement and lethal close-range damage was countered by his low health. The class system was also good in that not doing the job of your class would make certain death and defeat an almost certainty. If a Sniper tried to join the main fight rather than sniping from a distance, he’d most certainly be turned into a red smear on the walls, whereas if he does his job and put his bullets through people’s eyes from the next town over, he’d score more kills and most certainly help out his team a lot more. Every class had strengths and weaknesses, and no-one class shone more than other. This meant that successful teams had to have players from all classes – despite common belief, a team of nothing but Spies and Snipers will most certainly lose.



As far as I’m concerned, the game was-near perfectly balanced (I’ll admit I had issues with the Spy, but hell, I’m pretty sure everyone does ). And then when Valve announced that the Medic would be receiving an update with some new Medic-specific weapons, I was intrigued. Hey, pretty much everyone was intrigued, but probably not in the way that I was. I was confused as to how one class can receive new weapons where the other eight do not, and how the game would stay balanced. So, update day rolled around, and, to be honest, I was amazed at what I saw.

The Medic’s syringe gun, most definitely the weakest gun on the game, was improved to heal the medic for 3 health each time one of his syringes hit his target. This, for me, was certainly a step in the wrong direction. The reason for the syringe gun’s horrible weakness was to make the Medic useless in a combat situation, so he would concentrate on healing his fellow teammates, but now, the Medic could hold his own in combat, and maybe even score a few kills. Worse than that was the ubersaw, the new melee weapon that filled the Medic’s “Ubercharge” meter (which would allow the medic to make himself and the person he is healing invulnerable, or, with the new update, score 100% critical hits). Before, the only way to charge up this meter was to heal, which would encourage players to do so – now, it would be quicker, easier, and a helluva lot more exciting to run into the fray and try to gain charge be bonesawing anything that moved. With this update, not only was the medic discouraged to stand around healing, he was also given a tool to make it that much easier for him to survive one-on-one fights – something he was never supposed to have.

All this did not sit well with me, and, come the next update (the Pyro) I was worried that the Pyro’s new weapons would also screw with his original role. While the Backburner (a new flamethrower that scored 100% critical hits if someone is attacked from behind) did fit in with the Pyro’s M.O. as a close-range ambush class, the Flare Gun was the polar opposite. It allowed the Pyro to burn his victims from afar, meaning that one of the Pyro’s weaknesses – his inadequacy at long range – was gone. More updates followed and the same things happened. The Heavy, who was pretty weak unless he had a Medic backing him, now had the ability to heal himself with the Sandvich. The Sniper was given The Huntsman, a bow which made him just as deadly at close range as he was from afar. The Spy, whose one real method of killing was to backstab, was given a gun that crits on a headshot, meaning that any good spy would rather lop off people’s heads from afar than being forced to get close. Last but not least, the Scout’s Sandman served the same purpose as the Pyro’s flare gun – made the scouts inability to hurt at long range much less of a weakness. During all of this, the Demoman, Engineer and Soldier all had to make do without updates, so their weaknesses stayed as weaknesses, whilst every other class seemed to drop them quite easily.



Not only were these updates upsetting the balance, some updates were more useful than others. Take the Sniper’s Razorback, a shield designed to block the backstab of a Spy. This new tool was almost made obsolete by the Spy’s new crit-on-headshot Ambassador revolver – any spy who spotted the wood on the Sniper’s back would just step back, decloak out of the Sniper’s view, make two shots at the Sniper’s head and cloak away again. I’ll admit that this is perfectly fine – Sniper’s are weak against spies and this is how it stayed – but Valve didn’t have to throw in the near-pointless Razorback to give Snipers the illusion of Spy safety.

Valve’s inclusion of the console system and the ability to change almost every aspect on a server also affects the game balance. Sure, it can be fun to use lightning on Counter-Strike or spawn ten Witches in the saferoom on Left 4 Dead, but on Team Fortress, the most used mods seem to be Class Limits and Instant Respawn. Class Limits limit how many people can choose which class, and sometimes takes a class out of the equation together. Just doing that affects the balance so much – imagine this: A game where Snipers have been deemed too powerful and have been banned. Now, Heavies will be able to attack with less consequence and Engineers won’t be able to start building their sentries without Spies bearing down on them, Spies who’d usually be after the Snipers. Now imagine that Demomen had been banned – good luck destroying that sentry around the next corner, away from the rockets of a soldier or the greasy mitts of a Spy. Instant respawn also affects the game. You may or may not know that TF2 implements a system called “momentum”, where the respawn time is different depending on how the game is going. A simple example is that an attacking team will have quicker respawns than a defending team – this is fair enough, it’s far easier to bunker down and defend than draw guns and attack, so death should carry a higher price on the defence. But with Instant Respawns this goes down the can. Defending teams will receive the same respawns as attacking teams, making defences harder to breach, and making final captures, which are often a stone’s throw away from the spawn point of a team, will be twice as difficult.



All of this sounds like digression from the subject at hand – remembering forgotten relics of games that people might not’ve appreciated. Well, that is exactly what I am doing. Team Fortress 2, one the finest games ever created in the history of gaming, was at its peak before the class updates and before Valve let people mess around in the console. But we’re all stuck in the mentality of “OMG THE SNIPER GOT A BOW LET ME PLAY” to remember just how great that was! Team Fortress 2, without updates, without new weapons, without class limits or instant respawns or anything like that, is The Forgotten. All of this new stuff and tweaked server rules have blinded us and made us forget just how good Team Fortress was pre-update. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still good and I urge you to try it if you haven’t already, but what was once a 10 out of 10 2 years ago has become an 8 out of 10 today. And it’s a shame that most people have forgotten the five-star marvel that Valve released in 2007. It’s a simple case of don’t fix what isn’t broken, and also of a simple case of don’t let the players decide the rules.

The irony is, the update-less, mod-less Xbox 360 version of this game that people have been whining about is actually a better version than what we PC owners have got. Play it with pride, Xbox 360 owners, your time with the perfect version of TF2, which PC owners have forgotten, is most definitely limited.

The world of video games is, let’s not beat around the bush, bloody expensive. Unlike music and films, the price of your disk can cost upwards of thirty-five pounds, and that’s not including the console needed to play it, and the inevitable DLC that might arise. So, it’s safe to say, the market of free gaming is certainly an attractive one for any prospective gamer, but the act of finding quality in such a game is akin to finding some shit in a bucket of crap. Hell, to even get some people through the door of a free MMO you need to wave a nice shiny laptop in front of their face.

Its true though, most are shit, but there are some which do deserve some attention, and one of the bigger companies who provide entertainment for us penniless gamers is Korean company Nexon, and it’s two of their games I’ll be cross examining for you now: side-scrolling MMO MapleStory, and the twitch-reaction shooter known as Combat Arms.



We’ll start with MapleStory. Developed by South Korean company Wizet and published good ol’ Nexon, MapleStory is about as simple as one can get with an MMO. You make a character, you give him a weapon, and you kill everything that moves in this 2D-world in a bid to reach the godly heights of level 120. Ok, so maybe there’s a plot attached – you are a new resident of the island of Erev and newest candidate to join the Knights of Cygrus, a crack team of soldiers designed to beat the Dark Wizard. You spend the first 15 or so levels on this island learning the ropes before you’re plugged into the main world, Victoria Island.

Earlier players of MapleStory, like me, might find that above explanation different from the experience they had, and they’d be right – this is the new Knights of Cygnus expansion pack, and it does give the first 15 levels and choice of class some structure, and also guides you a bit on main Victoria Island. Combat is done with hilarious ease – at first you just move, jump with Alt, and attack with Ctrl, later on you’ll receive other special moves relative to your choice of class. This simplistic combat, in addition to the wholly 2D side-scrolling world, makes the game exceptionally simple to pick up, and, even though the first few fights are just a matter of mashing Ctrl until everything dies, the addictive quality of the game already starts to become apparent. As you progress, new attacks and enemies are given to you and the difficulty curve rises rather nicely.



However, after the mid-20s you begin to see something pretty obvious – every quest you receive is either a kill X monsters, or get X items by killing Y monsters. And in between those quests you train up for higher level quests...by killing monsters. Yes, it’s well documented that MapleStory is very much a grind-fest, you’ll spend most of your time killing monsters. But, of course, the reason MMOs like this are so popular is exactly that – the drip feed of experience you will receive for killing the millions of monsters you will. Unlike World of Warcraft, where kills take at least half a minute, MapleStory could have you kill 20 monsters a minute, and you’ll receive XP for every one, not to mention money and loot. The simple act of hitting a monster, landing the killing blow, and picking up loot from the floor all feel very satisfying and it’s a good job too, because you’ll be doing a lot of it.

This feeling is thanks in no small part to the lovely graphics. The whole world is rendered in brilliant cutesy-anime style, character models all look precious with their oversized head-to-body ratio, and the background environments are also just as pretty and very diverse – you could be in a green leaved forest or a red-stone canyon, both as visually appealing as each other.

But this lovely facade is not enough to hide this game biggest flaw – you’ll only be killing monsters. Sure, you can join guilds, families, and even get married, but you won’t do any of that until much later into your game, and if you do play the game past level 60, you’ll find the experience needed to level is horrendously high. Not only that, the penalty for death is 10% experience loss – in later levels, this could be literally millions of experience points lost. The community is also a bit dodgy – there’s quite a lot of kill stealing and shit talk from the other players you’ll see, but a good feature of MapleStory is the ability to change server mid-game, without the need to log out, so if you’re being abused you can easily hop to another channel.



So, if I were to sum it up in a sentence: it’s got the looks and charm of a Japanese Castle Crashers, but the gameplay can get monotonous if you don’t see the appeal of experience gaining. Now, we’ll jump to the other side of the gaming spectrum: Combat Arms.



Combat Arms, is an online shooter, again published by Nexon but this time developed by the funnily named Doobic Studios. In the game, you shoot other people, and the people you have to shoot depend on what flavour mode you’ve chosen. Elimination pits team Alpha and Bravo against each other in a straight-forward Team Deathmatch, One-Man Army is the standard free for all Deathmatch, Search and Destroy is a shameless carbon copy of the Call of Duty gametype of the same name – one team plants the bomb, the other team tries to stop the planting of the bomb, and good ol’ Capture the flag. These are the bog-standard modes that come packed with almost any shooter, but Combat Arms comes with two more interesting modes, Spy Hunt, and Quarantine. Spy Hunt is a weird mix of FFA deathmatch and capture the flag – there are five intelligence cases scattered around the map, and if all of these are collected, your stats are boosted and you gain an big advantage. Quarantine is, of course, Combat Arms’ way of shoehorning zombies into their game to boost popularity. 2 players are chosen each round to be the first zombies, and the remaining humans must survive three minutes. For a free shooter, there are enough modes to keep you interested, and the winning of money and experience will interest you even longer.

Gameplay wise, it’s not unlike MapleStory, that is, it’s as simple as PC shooters can get. Aim with mouse, shoot with click move with WASD, change weapons with numbers. You shoot who you are supposed to shoot and they die within a reasonable amount of bullet hits. What nice about how Combat Arms works is that it treats every kill as a big achievement – your first kill will be displayed on the screen as 1 KILL!!!! in big stylised letters, and it counts up your kills such like for every kill you get. HEADSHOTS, DOUBLE KILLS and the infamous NUT SHOT are also dealt with in this manner, and it really makes you work for your kills.

Experience is tracked with a Call of Duty-esque military ranking system, and you use your money to rent new weapons. Yes, that’s right, you RENT weapons. Newbies get a free weapon pack, and you also get free rentals after achieving certain ranks, but apart from that, you need to earn money for your own rentals. You can rent them for as little as 24 hours or as long as 90 days, and the system does smack a bit of an injustice – the more skilful players will earn more money, and therefore have access to the better weapons, the rich will most certainly get richer here.



Graphics wise, the game looks okay. Not brilliant, not crap, but most certainly accurate. And that’s really as much as I can say about it, you shoot, there’s bullets, then blood, then death. And it all looks pretty meh-ish. But, with free games is usually the graphics that suffer, especially in 3D games. But is it worth getting? Certainly. The most fun is to be had with Quarantine mode – repelling zombies is always fun, and there’s `a real thrill in becoming a zombie, finding where the humans have hidden, and causing one more infection to fuck up everything and cause a mass outbreak is very satisfying, as is being the last man standing and hiding well enough to escape the infection. It’s a shame there is only one map for Quarantine, but you won’t find that problem with the other game types.

The game, in short, is Counter Strike on the cheap...well, on the totally free. Certainly for a free game it’s quite deep and there are plenty of guns to buy and maps to play. Most certainly worth a download.
So there you have it. I would give both games a 7, and, in my opinion, a 7 is as high a free game will ever receive. All free games will be built on a stringent budget, and so games like MapleStory and Combat Arms will probably never reach their true potential. But, to be honest, if you’re looking for free games with no strings, you’re gonna have to deal with a bit of a quality drop.

Or, you could just flash your Xbox and make your own pirate games. Your call.