GameOgre: R2 Online First Impressions

There is no dearth of Asian-themed fantasy MMORPGs in the free-to-play market and the newly appointed R2 Online is no slouch for this contender. It’s still in the beta phase; but I was given access to it in order to review the game for GameOgre.com.

It features a strong 3D engine with a lot of special effects, epic booming music, and an extremely tight grip on the concept of transforming players into other things. The developers and publisher also seem to have spent a lot more time pitting the different guilds against one another moreso than driving the underlying storyline (although the narrative is certainly there.)

During my play through, I encountered a lot of different people—although most of them did kill me after I left the city—but overall the community will be driving this game with PvP and events. In fact, one thing that this game seems to push hard is events. The fact that I stumbled across something called a Monster Racetrack really caught my attention (although I didn’t get to see a race.) The world is vast, contains a lot of interesting things, and would take a while to explore.

While the game does work fairly well, I don’t think I’ll be returning to play. I’m not a fan of getting pwned repeatedly by the wild-world-of-PvP and just couldn’t stand exploring under threat.

Link to Kyt Dotson’s First Impressions review of R2 Online, via GameOgre.com

GameOgre: Wakfu First Impressions

Last week, I spent a while wandering around another closed-beta: Wakfu, a tactical combat MMO produced by Square-Enix. I took my experience and published a first-impressions article over at GameOgre.com of this free-to-play MMO.

While the game’s graphics don’t entirely play nice with my eyes—too small and doll-like even with the zoom feature—it still has a lot of cute effects going for it. From the turn-based tactical combat, the very cute animals (killing sheep called gobbals really) and also a socio-ecological feature set for its persistent universe.

Killing too much of the wrong thing makes it go away forever; of course, a portion of the game can be had by re-planting in the wake of destroyers. I believe that experience can also be gained doing that—although not the sort of experience that aids you in combat.

Link, via GameOgre.