Saturday, September 3, 2011

Looking at some free games

So I decided to look at Sims Social, which is on Facebook. Some of the hardcore Simmers were flaming this title at first sight. Which as someone who used to be a semi-hardcore Simmer at one point, I wanted to try it out and see if the love/hate press is what its worth. Open it up, and its enter my name, gender, and make my Sim as I want. For being on Facebook, its pretty decent in the way of making an avatar. It gives you little quests of collecting and doing stuff, and you have energy, like in most Facebook games.
Its not great, its not bad. Its a decent Facebook game. I can understand why some people were not happy about the idea of a Sims game in this style, but if your a purist, you'd never buy the spin offs anyways and if you like these kind of games/ buy anything Sims related, you'd enjoy it.
In other news,
This is how I am right now, mainly using Steam, so I'll give a brief thought of some of the games I've played that are free. I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for almost two years, and despite it being swarmed by a lot of people loving it being free, it still is a lot of fun.
I really like playing medic and I'm giving the Quick fix a shot.
The only problem I have in the way of the paying for some things, is the fact of the crates. Crates are locked boxes that you need a key to unlock. Which you need to buy, sometimes you'll get a cool hat or the item you wanted, but a good amount of the time its an item you don't care that much for. 


Forsaken Worlds
It's another free one on Steam, and its an MMORPG. Its pretty good, if you like the genre, as usual. The graphics are pretty good, and aside from my issues with fantasy armor.
This is a good summary of fantasy armor in general. Penny arcade tends to explain most video game things well.
Although their not too bad in the way of fantasy armor, so its a step in the right direction. The controls are good but its repetitive after a while. The things that are pay are things like mounts, pets and outfits, so they're not needed, and won't necessarily make you a better player, but their not bad and its not pushy.

Age of Empires Online
 Its a decent RTS, my only problem with it is the way it pushes you to buy the packs. Some of the items in game were rewards, that you could only use if you buy the pack. I don't have the money to see if it makes the game amazing, but I doubt it and RTS games aren't my cup of tea anyways. 

Not bad graphics though, and I can play it on my laptop with out much lag.

Global Agenda
Its on Steam, but it was a little tricky to get it to run, and it would only tell me that I didn't have a certain thing installed if I downloaded it directly from Hi-Rez Studios. So after I learned how to set it up right, I start playing. After you sign on, you do like most, make a character.
The character making made me happy in that you only chose the class and the facial features. The girls are still girls, but its not a hyper sexualized look. And that's all I ask. And the graphics are beautiful. From the the graphics are beautiful and whole areas are very well thought out for a dystopian future look.The one downside   is that controls respond weirdly. At times they are super sensitive and at times, they barely respond. That and it takes up a good amount of space because of the awesome graphics.

Champions Online
Another Steam game, and it does the most are for free, but you need to upgrade to get some powers.
Its a system that makes sense and its not one that will badger you through the whole game about you not buying something, which I like.

It still has moments of upgrade pushing, but it doesn't distract from the people who don't want the extras. Its a decent game, but its not my favorite, the graphics are okay and they have cut scenes with voices which can be a little over the top in my opinion.

Ragnarok online
I've been playing this MMO on and off for about 3 years now.There are tones of different servers, some free, some not, some over crowded, some dead empty. It varies from one to another. The biggest perk about this game its easy to learn for a first time player. Its a good introductory in the way of MMOs. The servers that I've been on for RO, aren't really plot focused, so I wouldn't call it an MMORPG. There are no main quests, only ones for items and for job changing, but not even so much for the latter because most now a days has an NPC that will do it for you as long as you fill the prerequisites.

Its ok as a starting out game. Its not amazing, its not terrible, its just an ok MMO.

World of Warcraft
What's this WoW is free? Well sort of. WoW is free for up to level 20. And its not naggy about not upgrading, maybe once you get up to lvl 20.
Other than the fantasy armor that bugs me at all times, its not bad, but its pretty overcrowded if you're a night elf. One of the reasons I'm a blood elf. Don't comment about me being a horde if you don't like me being one. I don't care what you play It doesn't nag about you not having the full version as you're a lvl 5. I like that

Dragon Nest
Its well done, I have one and only one issue in this game. Lack of gender choice. If you want to be a cleric or swordsman, you have to be male. And if you want an archer or sorceress, you can't be a sorcerer. It sounds trivial, but I know guys that love being rangers and spell slingers, and I know I'm not alone in being a girl that wants to beat the living tar out of something with a sword.And its the oldest form of stereotyping genders. Dungeons and Dragons switches from doing it and not doing it, and they're back to it. Its on the books themselves. But I digress. I don't like being forced to be a guy or girl based on my class.

So that's a few of the free to play games out there. I don't know if this is helpful or not. Please comment and tell me what you think.