Where Have I Been? Floating On Cloud Nine!

I've been spending some Time on Cloud Nine, a fun little game hosted by Games Net. The graphics are a bit to cartoony for my taste but I'm sure there are people out there who enjoy the cookie, anime-like, little less than Warcraft style graphics.

Anyone who can stick with this game up to level 10 gets rewarded with not only a (rather funny looking) mount, but also a "sub-class," not only do you get "sub-class skills" to work with your current ones, but thanks to a fun ability known as Skill Revolver, you can 'tag out' your primary profession at almost any time. This game also allows for a completely different set of clothes and weapons for your other profession, most people would think this just translates to "great more money I have to spend" but one of the cool parts of this game is that everything seems to be relatively cheep.

The monsters are all completely original which I'm sure you can tell from this picture -->
unfortunately the quests...not so much, most of them are your average "hunt" quests with a few dungeons thrown in to keep things fresh.

PVP works like World of Warcraft, two nations battling it out whenever they find eachother, or in designated "Battle Grounds." Although I like the free roaming idea, I don't really enjoy being sniped off by a hunter while I'm farming creatures.

The last thing I should probably mention is that Cloud Nine has a unique, and some what complicated way of starting (more so if you use Firefox) Internet Explorer is recommended for this game if your not very techno-savy.

Cloud Nine gets a 4 out of 10 again, not really my thing, but there are plenty of players in game so I'm sure people will enjoy it.

4S League....It's 4S Right?

Since were on the topic of epic 3D Shooters I have no talent for, I thought I'd bring this one up. This is S4 League, the closest thing I've ever seen to "Rave warfare." The techno-steam punk graphics and environments keep you hooked and happy while the 1 hit kill sniper weapons and stun lock 2 hit kill melee weapons keep you endlessly frustrated. This is one of the few games were I could go on and on about how many good things there are, and have one bad thing for every good thing I mention.

The music is great, each map has 1 of the roughly 5 or so fast-paced steam punk songs available on the game. The games themselves are actually quite entertaining, possessing unique styles of game play I don't think any other shooter will EVER be able to match, and like in my previous post Gunz, your character has access to awesome tricks and abilities, only difference being is that in this game they look more like dance moves, whether it's doing a back flip off the wall or doing an electric slide to avoid gun fire.

On top of weapons and clothes you also have a wide variety of skills to choose from.

To those of you who have already read this review I'd like to point out that the glitch mentioned before has been resolved. However, S4 has recently become the victim of a good number of hackers, these sore loosers range from people who hack because it's hard to tell if they are or not, to people who hack from the soul purpose of letting everyone know. "Hey I'm techno savi enough to get around this game's hack shield and get weapons and outfits not available in this version of the game, or freakish abilities like being able to instantly teleport to anywhere on the map. (You can imagine how annoying this is in a Touch Down match)

It's now the hackers that have knocked the score down a little, but I'm going to increase the rating to an 8 out of 10

p.s. The hackers are being dealt with by the people who run the game, though only one at a time, they're a dieing breed here unlike some other games I won't mention...yet.

Gunz - The Difficult

Gunz - The Duel, is an amazing 3D 3rd person shooter that also has a touch of 3d sword fighter. Unlike most shooter games that involve melee, the difference between the two is quite obvious, yet amazingly balanced. So much so that pros will continually swap between melee and range in the middle of a fight jumping in for a slash or stab then jumping back and gunning just as quick.

The game is basically "Devil May Cry" + "The Matrix" The fast paced shooting and sword slashing is complimented well by your ability to run up and along walls, dive from and behind cover, and even reload on the go. It's even possible to reload during any of those tricks which makes them great for getting out of a quick jam and quickly getting back into the fight.

Gunz's biggest draw back is how long it takes to get the hang of the literally constant flow of combat. This is by no means your average shooter, this game is only recommended to those with the quickest and sharpest of reflexes.

But to those that fit that category, you'll be happy to learn that Gunz - The Duel scores a 7 out of 10

URGENT WARNING!

The following MMOS are unstable and will infect your computer with heavy Malware caution is advised when looking into these games, and I recommend avoiding them all together.

CABAL ONLINE - The client doesn't work, as long as the client exists on your computer it will slow it down immensely, to top it all the client is undeleteable.

SHOOTERS BY IJJI - with the exception of Gunz - The Duel, (which I will be writing a review for on a later date) my computer was bugged and slowed down extremely simply by installing these games. The games themselves run smoothly but don't let that fool you, there not nice to your computer at all.

HOLY BEAST ONLINE HOSTED BY IJJI - See my review of HB, also shares the installation issues of IJJI's first person shooters.

Champions of Legend Come Together In One of The BEST MMOs Around

There are so many good things about Legendary Champions Online I could talk about, and even better, so little bad things. In Legendary Champions, Heroes from myth, legend, and ancient history, come together under three emperors currently in a struggle against one another. Depending on which emperor you choose to fight for, you'll have the opportunity to interact with, and eventually play as different legendary figures, ranging from Dracula, to Beowulf, Joan of Arch, and even Mulan.

Mounts are introduced to you right off the bat, the moment you start the game your given a not half bad looking horse. (and unlike most other games the starter mount doesn't expire after a time period) during Closed Beta there was a lack of character customization, eventually they will open the Item mall which will most likely have unique costumes (bought with real money as everyone so infamously knows) to alter your apearance to your desire. What the game lacked in individuality in the fashion world, it made up for with almost fully customizable stats. Each stat had a perfect blend of individuality, AND similarity, allowing for the creation of a killing machine, or powerful healer made completely your way.

If there's any significant problem it's this: a lot of the quests require you to do an insane amount of killing, though this game in no way makes you grind for levels, having to kill anywhere from 40-60 (and even 100 at one point)monsters for one quest can get pretty redundant. Luckily the quest that requires you to kill a boss hardly ever requires a party, as your hero of choice (referred to as a "Guardian" in game) can effortlessly solo most quest related bosses. (Deities and event bosses, now those are a whole 'nother story)

Legendary Champions Scores an 7 out of 10 (3.5 out of 5)
I look forward to playing this game again when open beta starts, and I recommend it to anyone who reads this.

Souls of the Fallen Masters

After Fantasy Earth Zero, and League of Legends made such disastrous attempts at MMO-RTS games, I sought out yet another, (hopefully good) RTS style game. Unfortunately this too seemed to have its fair share of problems...

The game is call Soul Master Online, players take the role of the "Soul Linker" the "Heroes" of the game, and although you don't directly control them, you also get to order around a horde of usually around 60 minions. The fights work like any other RTS game, build a base, build an army, clash with the opponents army, spray and prey, so on and so forth. Depending on what Soul Linker you choose your strand of minions (souls as their called in game) are different.

And THAT'S where the problems start...

The basic minnions appear to most likely help counter act the weakness of each Soul Linker Available to you. If you went with the caster hero, your minions are pokemonish looking souls with a tank like fighting style, allowing you to stay in the back. The same goes for the Assassin based class (who possesses a rather interesting ranged attack) only their minions special abilities allow for minor hit-n-run attempts...And then there's the Melee class...
Due to the Melee classes considerable lack of range, he's given powerful ranged minions (The rat looking things shown above) that fire cannons that deal an insane amount of damage...fix these guys up with some nice defense upgrades and you've got an invincible army of long range bombers backing up an invincible short range tank hero. Needless to say the Melee class (known in game as Valiants or Knights) is the dominating class of the game, which every RTSMMO seems to have...

This would normally be the ultimate downfall of the game, however Soul Masters online, has a very fun party based PVE system, and the community is actually pretty nice (except for that one random jerk who exists in every online game ever made) and helpful.

Soul Masters gets a 3.5 out of 10 (2 out of 5) who knows, if they release the new classes like they say they will at some point, maybe the game will balance out a little.

League of Cowards and Back-Stabbers

~Is what this game should properly be named. League of Legends is based off of the Warcraft DoTA (Defence of The Ancients) maps, where you only control a hero instead of a whole army. The other units which known as minions in the game, are run by a less than intelligent A.I.

The game itself is great, but the people who play it...not so much.
Casters and Range units make a habit of running scared whenever you try to attack them, then the moment you turn around they stun, freeze, slow, you and effortlessly pick you off. To counter this many melee units have a dash or "Jump" ability to zero in on the Ranged based characters, however these skills usually warp you in front of a turret that can do as much as several hundred points of damage to you in one hit, and guess who's there to make sure you cant get away from it? The casters and rangers, who after your killed by the turret gain a level and gold for free and proceed to do the same thing against the next player.

This game is quite broke, and full of cowards who exploit every little slip or slide to get the advantage over you. It's gotten so bad I myself can hardly stand to play the game any more. I recommend finding a game with a much better PvP because this is a waste of time.

This game gets a 2 out of 10 (1 out of 5)