The hot world of Neo Steam!

Good evening my fellows visitors, tonight I’m going to focus on Neo Steam, a new game tha collect several features from different game, like mounts, character’s races, crafting, mining and much more. With this review i want to underline what’s new and the points of strenght that makes this game a pleasent and funny MMORPG.

DESIGN

Neo Steam has a 3D raw design, graphic is very text-based (with some traduction mistakes) but characters, weapons, mounts and other equip are weirds, creatives and beautiful. Backgrounds are huge, the most of them are very well done in particular cities, training ground instead are usually bad defined (for example trees and mountains have the same pattern O.o or there is the jesus-walking effect when you cross pit with water).

There’s a lot of choice when you create your character: you have to choose you world before, Elerd and Rogwel (they have just few difference between them like cities and characters shapes), then your race: human, elf, pom (what I’ve chosen lol), Taxzn human and beast-kind (wolf or tiger, it depend from your world). Each race has its own characteristics, after that you choose your job! The choice fall through this kind of jobs: Fighter, Mage, Crafter, and Rogue. Later there’s a little part dedicated to customize the character before start the adventure.

Spawn zone is the city, at first impact i was amazed, buildings are very detailed and good looking, it looks like a big factory (probably because i choose Rogwel the technological world). Some quests teach you the basic comands (in my opinion text font is horribile, like old textual-games) and after some minutes you are alredy on the training ground hunting monster. Programmers could have done a better job whit mobs, they are not ugly but they aren’t even beautiful, maybe on the average, maybe under… As i said training ground aren’t like city, the same pattern almost everywhere and in some zones your character crosses rocks (but i think it’s common in 3D games). Equipment expecially weapons are very nice and shiny, infused with the neo-steam power a sparkling blue essence that substain Neo Steam world and that give a beautiful effect to everything. There are a lot of skill but it seems that programmers didn’t care a lot about them, just some red sign, or a quick yellow aura that cover the character. Neo Steam has great graphic quality but defect aren’t missing.

GAMEPLAY

As the design, also gamplay has ups and downs, the basic commands aren’t difficult to understand, after 10 minutes you will have the total control of your character. All what you need is patient to read all what npcs say and there won’t be any problem. Level up come quickly, i’ve reached lvl 10 in a little time and i advanced my job (every advancement unlock more skills) but i got some problem whit equipment: store are so damn expensive and monster don’t drop a lot of gold so you can’t buy useful item that can probably help you (like weapons or the ALL-CHAT item, that allow you to chat with everyone in the map). There is the possibility to buy a pet that help you during fighting (healing, attacking or stealing gold) and make it lvl up (with normal training). Quest give you a starter package, a very useful set of items and you recieve one every 5 level, it also contains a mount that expire in 1 week but it’s so cool!

AI of monster is something like an evil being that hate you with all his forces:  when some monsters in your range see you they run like crazy to fight but it’s not finished, they call reinforcements, they surround you and kick your ass out until you die.  In some training zone i kill just with my loyal gun so I can escape if a monster-gang start to pursue me. Some zones are also dedicated to PvP but it’s not very developed and until now I’ve never seen a match.

Another interesting features is crafting but as i said everything is too expensive and this great skill become useless sometimes. Crafted item are special:  with an item (very very expensive =_=) you can add a machine-skill to this equip, this skill summon a machine that can attack heal or buff your character (excellent during fighting) and it’s something that i never seen in any other games, a very nice shot for programmers, that demonstrate a lot of creativity making this game.

Summary time!

PRIDE AND SHAME

Neo Steam programmers must be proud of this game, it’s clear that they tried to do their best and they succed to create an original mmorpg.

PROs

• A LOT of classes and races to choose
• Very cute character and equipment
• Fantastic backgrounds in cities
• Innovative game with some features never seen before (like the neo steam system or machine)
• Easy livelling
• Pet system very usefull
• Easy gameplay
• New but alredy well structured game
• Lovely community (everybody helped me a lot)

CONs

• Everything is too expensive
• Monster homicide-AI make sometimes train difficult
• Poor backgrounds in training zone
• Terrible text font LoL
• Traduction mistakes (sometimes dialogue are difficult to understand)
• Still some bugs to fix

WhipMe’s Conclusion

This game is the one that more impressed me between other that i tried those days. It’s not just another 3D game clone of Wow or some famous mmorpgs, it has unique features and still a lot time to grow. I’m sure that Neo Steam with some right improvements will shine in the rainbow of the top free MMORPGs. I don’t suggest this game to kids, because it need patient to read, to understand and to be appreciated, but everybody can play and spend good time playing.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Direct Link: http://neosteam.gamigo.com/

FREE 2 PLAY

What am I doing?

We are working for you!

Why there’s no review today?

Nice question! (lol) but yesteray was my birthday (omg 19!) and today i downloaded some new games to test and to write a fresh review for you my dear visitor. Some example: Florensia, Cabal, WonderKing (i got a closed beta key YAY) and Neo Steam.  I gave a look to WonderKing, Florensia and Neo Steam and my opinion with few hours of gaming are: the first one is a 2D games clone of Maplestory but it’s very funny and well-done, probably because except the style o character and background, it’s exactly the same LoL… Florensia is a 3D damn-hard-to-understand-game, there isn’t a tutorial just a BIG BOOK to read with instruction, after you understand the basic of the game it could result a good game: there’s a nice features, sea combat, you get a ship and you go kill sea monster, level up, max skill and buy new equipment for it. Neo Steam it’s another game that worth to download it, 3D, 2 races with small differences between them and a lot of classes. The design need some improvement, it’s very simple, but there are a lot of interesting features like machine, pets and much more that i’ll write in my reviews

See you soon visitors!

The oldest story: Maplestory!

So many people made a review of this game, i hope to be original (it will be difficult). My experience with Maplestory ( US version) started exactly 3 years ago, around the 20th of august. This strange but addicting game fascinated me, and from that day i never stopped to play. Maplestory grown up a lot during this 3 year, before it was like: grind, grind, party quest, grind, party grind, and so on… Now it’s totally different, Nexon Game made a very good job optimizing a game created by Wizet (that neglected it a bit), the company improved socialization, lowered up the difficult in levelling and added thousand of new content making Maplestory a pleasent and very very addicting game with more then 70 MILIONS account registered.

DESIGN

The thing that first i’ve noticed was the 2D horizontal side scrolling style with a cartoon design, an original characteristic that hasn’t nothing to envy from 3d games. Indeed graphic it’s fantastic, backgrounds are amazing, full of colour and always new and never similar to another one. When you create your Beginner (the neutral class), there are few option to customize it, but the Cash Shop offer an infinite choice of clothes, hairstyle, face accessory and pet (too bad they cost real money and expire after 3 month…).  Character are beautiful and so are skills, monsters and sounds, works of artists in my opinion.

There are a lot of skills for each classes ( there are  46 JOBS TOTAL between advancement and the new race!!!) all wonderful, shiny and well done, with some recall to religions and asian culture. Monsters are uncountable, tons of monsters from the cute mushroom and little snail to a huge dragon that fill 2 maps, animals, fairies, giants boss, ghosts and much more. Design is absolutely one of the best characteristic of this game and the one that made it so famous. A lot of clones tried to take the place of Maplestory but at the moment no one can compete against it, a REAL MMORPG with monthly patch that constantly add new zones, monsters, equipments and classes like one of the last patches that introduced Knight of Cygnus a “race” parallel to the other one: the “adventurer” but with several different characteristic.

GAMEPLAY

Maplestory succeeds where other MMORPGs failed: it attract all kind of players, the casual and the more expert gamer, the 10 years old kid and the 30 years old worker. That can be possible thanks to the various classes, skill constructions and game style possibles, there’s not a predefined “build” it’s all up to the player that can choose if goes stat-less, low-stat or normal stat and what skill rise up before. Starting a character is very easy and there is a place that works as tutorial zone ( simple to understand), when you reach the right level it’s time to job and don’t worry if you put some point in the wrong stat, when you advance the NPC reset all point.

A lot of quests are available from when you start until high level, some are funny with good reward and exp, other are repetitive and useless.  Nexon staff improved a lot interaction through player, thanks to the party quest an easy, very funny and fast way to level up, a negative point is that there’s no PvP but classes aren’t much equilibrated (some classes are way stronger then other) so it’s better like this. The main jobs are 5:

1. Warrior
2. Archer
3. Thief
4. Magician
5. Pirate

Each class has from 2 to 3 possibility of advancement and 4 jobs avalaible ( 1st job lvl8/10 – 2nd job lvl30, 3rd job lvl70, 4th job lvl120) with a level caps of 200 except for Knight of  Cygnus (the new race) that have a lvl caps of 120. Every job is amazing to play until a certain level where train become a little bit boring, but there are tons of bosses where have fun and spend time with buddy or guild mate.

Maintain a game that accepts many millions of player is very expensive, and Nexon can do it thanks to the Cash Shop, a store that sell everything for nexon cash, rechargeable with credit card (err also something that advantage players whom buy them, but there’s no PvP so who cares lol!), but with a new system introduced, you can sell game item in a special market (MTS) for Nexon cash, without spending a cent. Maplestory had (and it probably will have) problems with hacker, money seller web-site and of course with idiot (they are everywhere), staff and gm usually take some month to resolve this problem, that could be resolved faster, until someone create a new hack. A weak point of this fantastic games is the staff, GMs aren’t available to speak whit user ( except Maplestory EU, where there is a more direct contact), they are a bounch of lazy ass and they’re good just to organize event (sorry for this vent).

In my humble opinion this game is totally addicting and if you loose control you could spend like 12 hours playing in a  row (personal experience, gawd x_x), the game is always developing, warranty of  an endless success.

It’s time to summarize now!

PRIDE AND SHAME

The pride of this game are a lot but what about the weak point?

PROs

• Amazing design (characters, monsters, backgrounds, skills, everything)
• Easy to understand how to play
• A real multiplayer, where party is basic
• Thousand of monsters and boss
• Huge world to explore
• Monthly events and patches with always new contents
• A lot of beautiful and lovely classes
• MTS (market to sell item for nexon cash, very useful!)

CONs

• Incompetent staff
• A lot of useful items are sold just in the cash shop
• Periods full of hacker
• Unbalanced classes
• Too addictive!

WhipMe’s Conclusion

Maplestory can be considered the top in his genre, a beautiful game, very well done with a big community. Despite the 2d graphic this game offers more fun and is more enjoyable then many other 3d games. I suggest it to everyone, child, teenager, adults that want to spend good time playing in a lovely world.

Overall score: 9/10

Direct link: http://maplestory.nexon.net/

FREE 2 PLAY

Welcome to the Fight Club!

Welcome back my friends! Today is a good day to write a reviews… As the title says i’ll talk about a fighting game that I downloaded days ago: Rumble Fighter (EU version),  a game, IMHO, where you can spend max 1/1.5 hour because of the ripetitivity of action but excellent to release stress. A nice killtime to fill short time holes in your day. Let’s explain more accurately now.

DESIGN

At first impact graphic result poor, very simple but backgrounds and characters are quite better.  After you choose your class there isn’t the possibility to create another character, you have to buy it from the shop (it’s quite expensive too) and THERE ISN’T ANY customization, a bad moves in my opinion. A good amount of clothes are avalaible in the shop and are gifted at certain level, same for weapon and some scroll that teach you new fighting moves.

Let’s see the fighting part now: backgrounds are original but nothing special, the real point of strenght is variety, there are A LOT of backgrounds (classics ring, vertical arena, moving map, ice island and much more). Some maps are harder then other for beginner but after a bit of training there won’t be any problem.

Character are almost all the same until you earn enough money to buy something, the four classes have different skill (2 skill each) and common techniques (guard, punch, kick) and ehy… uuuh i’m ripetitive but, NOTHING SPECIAL, i’ve seen much better, not flashy, not all originals and they’re just two… Ok reviews must be impersonal but… what were they thinking when they create this? This is a fighting game, people want to see fantastic techniques, flashy skill, explosion, fire and a little bit of blood, why not? There isn’t anything like that in this game…  Anyway graphic it’s not everything.

GAMEPLAY

Rumble Fighter has a simple and intuitive gameplay, whit a good and clear tutorial (there are just few keys lol…). The main classes are: Striker, Elementalist, Alchemist and Soul Fighter that evolve in Guardian at level 20 (but i heard that game stop to be free at this point). As i said they all have 3 common techniques usable during the normal mode, each class have a different trasformation (it just add a pair of gloves and shoes) that unlock 2 skill quite powerfull. The trasformation can be activated waiting a charging bar.

There are two kind of game: Deathmatch and Rumble Match both teamVSteam or allVSall but the second one has 3 sub-modes: king of the hill, moving map, and potion battle.  I had a lot of fun in DeathMatch allVSall but king of the hill is funny too (i think that it’s all about tastes). Sacred scrolls are an interesting way to differentiate classes, these scrolls equipped change your fighting style (each classes have unique styles), mhuay thai, karate, street fight and many other that could be bought in the store, but character are still all equilibrated and there’s no big differences except skill.  This game has the potential to become very popular and deserve our trust.

PRIDE AND SHAME

Let’s list now point of strenght and point of weakeness:

PROs

• Very good game to kill time
• Funny modes
• Excellent tutorial, you need just 5 minutes to learn to play
• A lot of maps
• Brand new game whit nice patches on the way
• Light client (400MB)

CONs

• Few classes
• No possibility of costumization when you create your character
• Terrible and not original graphic
• Few skill and techniques
• There aren’t a lot of players so in certain hours it’s hard to find a room
• It needs a lot of improvements before it can be considered a good game

WhipMe’s Conclusion

This game lack of originality and graphic accuracy but it’s simple, user-friendly, anti-stress whit a lot to improve, I gave a look to the US version and it’s way better, so I’m sure EU version will gain a lot from next patches!

Overall Score 6/10

Direct Link: http://rf.ogplanet.eu/main.og

FREE 2 PLAY

What’s Dragonica?

Welcome back dear visitors, today i want to talk about Dragonica: a stylish 3D game with an exceptional gameplay  based on the party system. This system allow fast levelling, communication between player and a lot of fun, but i want to explain you some features before analize the gameplay.

DESIGN

As I said Dragonica is a 3D Side Scrolling game (gPotato says the first in this genre) whit a cartoon-like graphic and lovely backgrounds, from the quiet country to the dangerous lava falls.

The characters are completely customizable whit a medium range of hair-style, facial signs and a big amount of equipment (unique for every class but still very good-looking) exchangable every 5-7 level. All classes have A LOT of funny and flashy skills, i have to admit that programmers did a very good job whit skills:  bear mask, flying book, an angry Bruce Lee that attack everything, Michael Jackson moonwalking!!, rocket launcher, flashy dragons and much much more. Monsters are well-done but repetitive after a while ( you usually  find the same monster whit a different colour and stronger then before),  they follow the humor of the game, doing funny face and  sometimes splitting on the screen (lol).

Hero’s Quest are really funny ( instead of the normal quest, boring and repetitive) and allow you to follow the story-line, not whit long long wall of text to read but whit small video between them.

GAMEPLAY

The Gameplay is characterized by some unique features that make this game different from other of the same mold: the horizontal side scrolling mixed whit 3D graphics give an excellent imprint to the game and give a breath of fresh air from the classics 3D/2D games, equilibrated classes (almost all classes have the same weight in party, except PVP), yes exactly, i said PVP! That’s an interesting feature of this game reserved to a specific area, the arena where all classes can fight in different mode (DeathMatch, TeamVsTeam) and gain CP, point used to buy equip from the store. Obviously some classes are advantaged because of ranged skill but a skilled player can beat who he want with any classes. There is the possibility to create a Guild and you can organize fight between guild-mates, that is so amusing! Exping in Dragonica is much more funny then exping in other mmorpg, there’s no solitary grinding in this game, you can do it but with bad result. The main way to level up is to join Party Mission (4 member or less), mission composed by 4 stage full of monster and a final boss that gives rewards (1 to 4 in base of the rank). This kind of train kill the boredoom because you have to collaborate and socialize to get better exp faster and you learn how to use you character.

Dragonica has (like many other MMORPG) 4 classes: archer, warrior, thief and wizard that have 2 job advancement each:

Archer> Pathfinder or Arbalist

Warrior>Gladiator or Knight

Thief>Jester or Assassin

Wizard>BattleMage or Monk

There is 1 more job advancement that depend on what you chose. Every job has beautiful skill but a lot of them have huge CoolDown (like potions), so it’s important to enchain skill, once you find the best chain of skill there will be no boss that can resist you. The ComboCounter (CC) is another reason to combine skill, the more combo you get, the more exp you gain. Indeed CC  activate an exp multiplier, very usefull during boss or big mobs.

I have to make a critic against monster AI, they are STUPID and so violent… When you enter in a map all monster in your range come seek you, they just want to see you dead, no matter what you did. That’s annoying because there are few safe plat in some maps…  So if somene ring at the door and you don’t want to die… Yeah, hold on 10 more minutes at the door man, i have to finish that mission…

PRIDE AND SHAME

Now let’s make a quick list of what worth in this game and what have to be improved:

PROs

• Good customization of character
• Excellent way of levelling
• Flashy and beautiful skill
• PVP!!!!
• Cartoon-style 3D game
• Variety of equips
• Guild creation
• Funny videos that explain the story-line during quest
• Free market where you can sell your item

CONs

• It’s a new game so some bugs still have to be fixed (but Dragonica’s staff pay attention on the game)
• Bad monster AI
• Normal mission are repetitive and boring
• Sometimes there are the same monster with different color and more attack
• Huge Cooldown

WhipMe’s Conclusion

Dragonica is a new born game that need to be improved, but the impression that gave me is very positive. Many features make this game pleasant and funny, and many more have to come. I suggest this game to everyone that love cartoon games, to socialize and play whit other or also against other!

Overall Score 8/10

Direct Link: http://en.dragonica.gpotato.eu/

FREE 2 PLAY

Hello world!

Hello everybody this is my first post and i hope that there will be many more. The main reason of this blog is to gather my experience on Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPG for friends) whit my reviews, news, game patches and tips&tricks. I will keep you informed about the hottest, the newest game on the net, if they worth to be played and suggestion on how to enjoy at the best your play time.

I’ ll try to make my reviews the most complete as possible but if i miss a thing, an important aspect of the game, I will be very happy if you let me notice my mistake. Now it’s time to talk about me, who I am (that’s hard to say LoL) where i am from (who da fak care?!) and what i do in my life (same as before).

First of  all, I’m almost 19 (16/08 it’s the magic number) I’ve got a quite good experience on Mmorpg, my first RPG was a demo Trial of WoW lol, then i started whit Maplestory (i’ll never forget my first love) and the other games just come to enjoy my boring afternoon. I appreciate a lot good 2D games, if they have an excellent gameplay and funny feature (as Maplestory). The newest product are loosing the real spirit of the game, productor think that a bloody, squishy, flying liver would cover the holes in the gameplay and that a sparkling tear that fall from a purple defined eye can distract user’s attention from a crappy story. Anyway i’m sorry for this “jump” but i just wanted to let you know how i think about games and related, so let’s continue whit my presentation: as i said i’m 19 years old, i’m from italy and i’m going to set up in England – Cambridge where i’ll start university (Bachelor in Marketing).

That’s me my dear visitors, my next post will be a review of something, probably Maplestory (lol) or maybe Dragonica, 2 different games by graphic (2D and 3D) but very similar in the gameplay. Dragonica has like 2 month so it’s less expanded, less populated but very good programmed and funny. Maplestory has 4 years so its huge (1gb client), very populated and still in progress whit monthly patch full of exciting contents.

I have to go now, I’m also a mom, my kitten don’t suck it’s mom’s tit so i need to feed it whit a baby’s bottle.

See you soon guys