The Great GAME Purge of 2009

Ardwulf purged the MMOs installed on his PC:

That time has come again, to free my overloaded hard drive of games (MMO and otherwise) and software that I’m not playing, and won’t be, for the foreseeable future.

Since I am no longer MMO-centric, I am going to list my GAME purge of 2009. As a bonus, hard drive space is super valuable to me currently as I am shooting a ton of high def video of little Heartless_.

Action Games

Battlefield Heroes: Staying. Its free-to-play and I've spent a few bucks to customize my heroes. Its easy to get into and offers casual FPS game play.

Team Fortress 2: Staying. Every time I think about removing this game, Valve releases an update that pulls me back in. Also, I still want a damn hat!

Left 4 Dead: Uninstalled. I haven't played in months and the friend I played with from work switched to a night shift and is never online when I am. It was a fun romp while it lasted. Also, as the game was downloaded via Steam, it is a simple 1-click reinstall.

Call of Duty 4: Reinstalled. I want to play through the single-player campaign again, and I have to admit that the CoD4:Modern Warfare 2 videos have me drooling for some CoD4 multi-player action.

Quake Live: Staying. Its contained in a browser plug-in and easy to jump into. I may suck at it, but its completely free and worth keeping around.

MMOGs

The Chronicles of Spellborn: Staying, but only if I can fix it crashing my PC. I purchased a new video card and now when I boot up TCoS, it BSODs my computer. If I can't fix this, I will have to remove the game. I don't want to, but TCoS is frozen in development, so no fixes are likely to come down the line. This is the only game that crashes with my new video card.

Runes of Magic: Uninstalled. Since the WoW Cataclysm announcements, I feel dirty playing RoM. For $15 a month, I could be having a much better experience in WoW. RoM is fun and well developed, but I have five years of WoW bias to fight every time I'm logged in. Plus, the PvP in RoM sucks.

Maple Story: Uninstalled. I said I was going to try the game that 90+ million people have tried, but outside of the card game I've lost interest. The iTCG is out of beta, so it now costs money and I doubt I'll be going back to it anytime soon.

Free Realms: Uninstalled. While some people are treating Free Realms as the next coming of Jesus, I see through its thinly veiled exterior. Its a bunch of mini-games in a world where players can interact with each other. All of the good stuff is locked behind the pay wall. I will only admit that it is well executed and offers a quality experience, but it is nothing special. Kongregate, I'm coming back.

Domain of Heroes: Bookmark deleted. Yes, I spent $10 on this lackluster game and then promptly stopped playing. It was after the $10 that I realized how hopeless the development of the game was. Changes were either slow or completely out of left field. It could be a great and fun game, but the balancing act required seems out of reach for the developers.

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Possible new install. I have to wait and see how the game reviews in its new free-to-play form. I never agreed with the fundamental design of DDO, but it could turn out to be a decent freebie that is worthy of a few hours.

Miscellaneous Games

The Path: Staying. I still haven't unlocked everything in this little gem of an indie-game. Plus, I think if I uninstall the game, strange things start happening in real life.

Metaplace: Staying. I don't know what to think of Metaplace. I don't believe it can be a gaming platform of any kind in its current state, but I'm curious to see where it goes. Plus, it takes up no room on my hard drive, so it makes the decision easier.

Heartless_ Says: Maple Story iTCG Pretty Good

I blogged about the beta of Maple Story's iTCG recently. At the time, the beta servers were down. Since then, I've gotten a chance to play the tutorial and knock out a few games online. While not a perfect overall package, the iTCG puts the browser-based platform to good use and introduces a refreshing new game.

I would describe the basic mechanic of the iTCG as "choice". Every card has two parts: type and skill. Card type's include characters, monsters, items, and tactics. Skills are separate from the card type and are used in conjunction with the character card (Thief, Warrior, Mage, or Bowman). There is only a single character card per deck and this defines the basic skills that players start the game with.

The first part of a turn is "leveling up", which involves choosing a card to play from your hand. During level up, the skill on that card is added to your character. That skill is then available for use if the criteria is met. If a card is used to level up, you gain the skill associated with the card for the rest of the game, but the card is then no longer playable as it is permanently attached to your character as a skill.

If a player chooses to level up, their character gains +10 levels. Leveling can be skipped, allowing players to avoid losing a card they may want to play. Each skill, monster, and tactic has a level requirement. The level requirement must be met through character level or skill before the card or skill can be used. Some skills allow higher level cards to be played.

To make the choices even more interesting, skills have a color requirement. Each skill is of a certain color and requires other skills of the same color above or below it in a character's skill list. A level 70 skill with two black down arrows requires two black skills below it. If the color requirement is not met, the skill can't be used. This prevents the use of decks that use the best skills of each color. Multi-colored decks can work, but take careful planning.

Skills do something immediately or allow a player to play the rest of the card types: tactics, monsters, and items. There are also "one shot" skills, which are usable only on the turn they are played. Normal skills are free to use every turn if the requirements are met. After several turns, the stack of skills available can get quite large.

Item, tactic, and monster cards are straight forward. They can only be played on your turn as the result of a skill or card trigger. Items are attached to your character and have a passive effect on the game or in the case of weapons, can be used against your oppenent. Tactics are immediate effects on the game. Monsters are "spawned" and then can be used to attack. Monsters also serve as a defense for your character. For every monster in play, your character takes -10 damage from enemy monster attacks. Monsters can be targeted and killed.

The hardest part of the game for a new player is understanding the flow of skills and leveling up with the correct cards. My suggestion here is to play slowly at first and think about when and how a card can be used. If the skill has a level 70 and two blue requirement, its probably best saved for the mid-game. It won't be usable right away, but it has to be played early enough to get two blue skills underneath it (to meet the skill requirement of two blues).

The objective of the game is to reduce your opponent to zero life.

With the game mechanics covered, I would like to list a few cons I found with the game:

• Players can leave games when they know they will lose, preventing them from taking a loss on their record. I currently have 0 wins and 7 losses, but I've played over a dozen games. Every game I've won, the other player left early preventing me from getting a win. This has to be fixed or it will ruin the game. If a player loses and does not return within 60 seconds, they should receive a loss.
  
• Server stability was rocky the first day. I continually was disconnected from the tutorial, forcing me to restart it repeatedly to learn the game mechanics. Since then, I've had no issues.
  
• A few cards feel way too powerful. For example Energy Bolt is easily played and deals 80 direct damage. Overall, most direct damage skills and abilities are over the top IMHO. The more games I played, the more I felt as though the Thief and Warrior decks were completely unplayable against Mage or Bowman stacked decks.

With cons, come pros:

• Without a computer to track everything, this would become an unwieldy card game to play. The way skills works demands a computer referee. That is why I stated that the Maple Story iTCG takes good advantage it's platform.
  
• The game is browser-based and requires only flash. Click the link and you can play on 95% of the PCs out there. Not a "pure" browser-based game, but flash is a standard of sorts and requires little effort to get running (unlike Quake Live's browser plug-in).
• The artwork is solid and enjoyable. Again, the iTCG takes advantage of being on a computer and offers great visual animation for attacks, monsters, and when playing a card.

Go ahead and give it a whirl.

Maple Story iTCG

I am a sucker for trading card games (TCGs). As I've gotten older and more responsibility has cropped up in my life, I've found little to no time to head out to my FLGS (friendly local game store) to play with "real" cards. So, I've been relegated to online versions. I played Free Realms' card game for a bit, but quickly realized it was a massive money sink. I played Magic the Gathering: Online for all of its beta, but scoffed at the idea of paying the same price for virtual cards as I was for real cards. However, every time I hear about a new online TCG, I get interested and click on over to check it out. So, when I caught this story on WarCry about a Maple Story iTCG, I had to investigate.

Nexon America opened a new Web site for its upcoming game, MapleStory iTCG Online, at http://itcg.nexon.net. iTCG Online is an online flash-based, in-browser trading card game using the characters and monsters that occupy the world of MapleStory.

The biggest part that caught my attention was "online flash-based, in-browser". This means players open the web page, log in, and then start playing. An almost "pure" browser game (flash is still a plug-in, albeit a web standard of sorts).

Now, this is where I would insert information on how the iTCG plays, but the servers have been down all morning and I can't give the game a whirl. If the servers come up before the mood passes, I will check it out and maybe report back here on my findings.

NOTE: I understand this iTCG will probably be a money sink, but that's why I am trying to get in on the beta (which I'm hoping unlocks a lot for free)!

No Such Thing as a Free Puppy: FREEEEEEDOM!!!

Ever heard that there is no such thing as a free puppy (NSTaaFP)? Sure, the puppy is free, but the food is not, veterinarian bills don't pay themselves, and that poop in the back yard isn't going to clean itself up. Nothing is ever free; there is always a price to pay.

With my real life churning at an incredible rate (baby on the way, new job, new rank in the military reserves, and a less than stellar economy), I am having to adjust my gaming habits. Gone are the days of shelling $30+ monthly for multiple MMO accounts and having dozens of hours to play weekly. Arrived are the days of 30 minute gaming sessions and better-things-to-spend-my-money-on-than-games.

Fear not, for I will NEVER give up online gaming. What I am giving up are overpriced, bloated, and value-depressed gaming habits. An MMO subscription may be a bargain, but that same $0.50 per hour of gameplay is a lot more valuable put into chewing gum most of the time. Plus, in the long run, a good non-subscription game is going to prove far more value-profitable for my time spent.

That is not to say that a good subscription-based MMO isn't worth the money, but the B-rate subscription MMOs with half-ass launches and lackluster gameplay are now off the table for me. I can get the same crappy gameplay from free games that force no commitment upon me. Hell, I may even warm up to the idea of micro-transaction games.

Also, this probably means any game costing $50+ better be damn good if it wants my money (and they better not require hardware upgrades). When I can buy games like Team Fortress 2 for $20 ($10 when its on sale!), game developers will never again convince me to spend $50 for a game if there is any chance the game will falter. However, I hold the right to waffle on that statement as I am susceptible to hype (bad Heartless_, bad).

I am damn well sure that I am not upgrading my hardware for any game. The beauty of most free to play games is that they shoot for wide audiences and run on practically anything. Fortunately, some "real game developers" are getting the clue. For example: Valve does a great job with their Half Life engines, which run well on most up to date PCs. Epic Games does not with their Unreal engines, and some four year old games are still impossible to run on your average gaming PC today.

Here is my short list of Free to Play games I am going to hit up:

1. Quake Live
2. Maple Story
3. Battlefield Heroes

Any more suggestions? Hit up the comments.