Freemium Armada

I’ve had my last attempt at a Free to Play game. I’m done, no more. I used to play Tribes back in the day when the first one got released and so I thought I’d take one last look at the series (considering the last Tribes game was utterly dismal). Tribes: Ascend has been released in the last few days and is a free to play multiplayer FPS made by the same guys who did the MMO Global Agenda. My love for the series has now completely left me all thanks to that little word that is currently irritating the shit out of myself and a lot of other gamers: Microtransactions.

Sure, you do get free to play games without paying a cent and can play them as much as you want all the while gaining xp/currency to gain unlocks and progression but what’s the point when it takes an age to gain that extra level or get enough currency to unlock that extra weapon. If you enjoy the base game enough that you don’t care about rewards or progression, then I suppose you’re finding free to play games to be the best thing since dual thumbsticks. But if you give a shit about getting timely unlocks and progression or at least keeping up with the competition then your choice in free to play games is immediately obvious. Spend money or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with spending money on games and some people may say “well why don’t you pay the same amount you would for a regular game and it’ll all work out even” or some such bullshit. The problem lies in the fact that these games are purposely designed to be a grind-fest if you don’t spend your hard earned RL currency. I remember when games that felt like a grind to play were condemned as having horrible player experience. The point is, if you go ahead and spend $50 to $100 dollars on a free to play game then fine, you may be able to gain all unlocks and it may even out. But what happens when the next content patch arrives? Suddenly there’s a ton of new gear/upgrades/unlocks and you have to fork out more again to keep up. You see where I’m going here right?

To experience the game as a whole the amount of money needing to be poured into most free to play games would far exceed the price of a regular game in the long run especially when compared to the quality of the title.

At this point it makes me wonder how far we are away from adopting more eastern design concepts into the microtransactions we’ve already borrowed. When will we begin to see western MMOs that add blatant peer pressure mechanics like paying a fee to revive your character on the spot? Imagine having a full raid group of 20ish people screaming at you to pay to revive immediately after you die mid-boss battle. Yay microtransactions!

Now some of you may be saying “but dude, you used to have a WoW subscription”. You do have a point there, but the catch is if you can find another game that releases large content patches regularly, constant fix patches, is as well balanced and has as amazing customer service as Blizzard provides then fuck, I can justify a subscription cost. Nothing else even comes close.

What I can’t stand is a huge buy now button covering a shiny piece of gear which dramatically affects my gameplay and will take me a stupid amount of hours to eventually attain the free way.

I Am Alive

DISCLAIMER: I’m a massive post-apocalyptic fanboy whore and will latch onto anything post-apoc. I’ve tried to be impartial here but I can’t help a squee or two, I’ll try to hide the boner.

I Am Alive is a post-apocalyptic survival game made by the guys over at Ubisoft Shanghai. The game is available on Xbox Live and PSN as a downloadable title which I personally managed to get 5 hours of gameplay out of in one playthrough, not bad for a downloadable title.

The key thing to note about this game is that it is a survival game in the purest sense of the word. E.g. People near me would often hear me exclaim in excitement when I found three bullets on an NPC I’d managed to kill. Everything about this game is survival, if you expect the status quo of post-apocalyptic games out there i.e. run and gun with clanky old weapons against ragtag enemies while speeding through the wastes in a makeshift buggy then you’re going to be disappointed. Consider I Am Alive closer in nature to the film: The Road. A brutal, cold struggle that kicks you out of the bed in the middle of the night then ass rapes you right as you’re falling asleep.

The developers did very well making everything in the game feel like it was a valuable resource not to be squandered. You have stamina that depletes as you climb or spend too long in dust clouds, requiring you to stop for breaks to recuperate. Bullets are few and far between and must be used sparingly. Any supplies you found must be rationed to ensure you’re never without them otherwise you’ll end up facing dire consequences.

Even re-attempting areas from a checkpoint becomes a commodity. You can gain ‘Retries’ through the game which allow you to reload from the last checkpoint should you die, if you run out of Retries you must reload the level from scratch. Retries can be gained by scavenging well as a few are found as physical items in the level or by helping others (usually meaning sharing your resources) which becomes a balancing act of deciding on what is more valuable to you at the time, the resources or the Retries.

The game has a sparse feel overall, you’re placed in a wrecked, dust covered city years after what is simply referred to as “The Event”. After a while the greyed out art and dust can get a bit oppressive and dull but personally, I found it all added to the feel. (I’m not going to give away story or even premise because I think doing that is just shit) The city feels pretty much deserted, people are around but they’re few and far between and you only tend to encounter a handful at a time, their attitude towards you is another thing entirely.

Encountering people leans towards the psychological as opposed to the action-orientated shoot and ask questions later seen in most other games. Upon approaching another person, you can usually tell what you’re in for pretty quickly and learn early on to size up every person you meet. Are they carrying a weapon? Are they acting hostile, defensive or supplicative? and for the opportunist: Have they noticed you yet?

If they’re Hostile you enter a stand-off moment where they may attempt to assert their dominance and rob you. At which you point you can choose to lay the smack down using a combination of tactile shots fired on the most threatening members of the group and brutal machete kills. If they’re Defensive you can usually simply back away and leave them be as they may just be innocent people trying to protect what’s theirs. Then there are the people who are down and out that will ask for your help. At no point did I feel pressured into playing any particular way as there were pluses and minuses for both being a selfish, dick and for being an altruistic hero.

I Am Alive is a breath of fresh air for post-apocalyptic games and all of gaming in general, being a game which makes you think about your every action, reaction and interaction. As an added plus, I had no dramas with bugs throughout the game although I did get lost briefly a few times, but that was usually sorted by taking careful notice of my surroundings and thinking (shocking, I know). It was nice to play a game that didn’t hold my hand at any point and just let me figure things out for myself. Overall, I found the game seriously enjoyable and well worth the price tag (about $20).