Aug 22, 2011

Review: Vindictus

Destruction is a thing of beauty.. Isn't it.



    Vindictus is an Action MMO Game made by Nexon using the Source Engine from Valve that brings brutal physics, party play and story. You'll be hack & slashing your way threw enemies while destroying the surrounding around you. Now that the intro is done with, let's jump to other stuff shale we.


    Combat is simple, You left and right mouse button or S and D on the keyboard to attack. You can't just keep spamming attack cause you'll lose stamina much quicker and leave yourself to an open attack that could be life or death. Their can be timing between attacks if you needed but not by much like for example for a Karok - L.click x2, can pause here and quickly look for enemy, R.click, can pause here into Dropkick. You can also cancel most moves by simply dodging. Beyond that, you'll need to learn how to dodge to live and be credit to team.

    Gameplay is pretty simple as well. You and up to 3 others will get on a party boat (no really) and do Battle Quest Dungeons for quest, loot, AP (ability points), and XP. Battle Quest can be simple enough to solo (if u want) till around the Raid Battle Quest - Dethrone The White Tyrant (Similar but harder battle quest pictured right) then enemy bosses gets tougher and you have to LEARN to not get hit cause 1-3 hits can be your death if you're not careful. Most Battle quest gives you an additional goal like, completing it w/o Armor and increased difficult but why stop their cause you can do all that in hard mode which actually decreases Bosses HP but you won't see their HP and they they hit like trucks.

    The Four Character that you can play as are Lann the duel wielding specialist, Evie the magic expert, Fiona the warrior, and Karok the piller wielding giant. They have unique abilities "especially Evie" like Lann's Berserk Party Buff, Evie's Ice Spear and Karok's Boss Rush. All of the classes beside Karok tries to make you choose what direction you want like Swords or Spears for Lann, and Sword or Hammer for Fiona. They come w/ their advantages and disadvantages like for Sword Lann damage may not be as great early to mid game as Spear Lann but have an higher survivability rate cause of Slip Dash's Damage Invisibility factor. Their will be a 5th character in Kai the bowman/woman but no word when will that be.

    NPCs.... You rarely see any of the main ones beside their pics but they are in the town. To interact w/ them, you have to visit where their located and you'll just get a panning of the room and their likeness on the bottom left screen. You can see what I mean further below in picture form.

8 man Raid (7 on this pic) to kill 2 giant spiders.. Where's the Giant Bug Spray when u need it!


The Cool Features 

  • Graphics are just beautiful from the dungeons to the armor you're wearing that look like it just got waxed. It's alot of details and most w/o hindering a low spec PC.
  • Destructible Environments - the fact that it's actually encourage to help kill your enemies and find hidden stuff is great but it can hurt you as well. You can pick up the debris from them and use it as temporary weapons until you either run out of stamina, breaks, or you getting hit. 

  • Armor you wear can succumb to the enemy,objects, or/and fall damage and break in the middle of a fight leaving you in only your underwear and your defense shot up.
  • Event(s) are happening like from the faster crafting leveling and just being log in at certain times to get free and sometimes rare stuff that you would have to pay real money for. When one ends, another event seems almost instant.

  • Lastly the Paladin/Dark Knight transformation (Right - Evie, Fiona pally and dark knight Lann). At level 40, you get the chain quest which is easy until the Holy Ground Battle Quest which can only be done on Hard mode. After you die many times to complete it, you'll have to either save or kill a certain character (you'll probably be like YES, finally I can kill "insert name here") in the quest. Depending on your choice you can be paladin or dark knight. The ability can be use only once per hour and can last for 2 minuets but you gain more power, health, and other bonuses you apply to your transformation level.

The Downside

    Although their tons of battle quest, you will be doing them over and over for many reasons. The other is that their's only two City/Town and one you'll only be visiting (Rocheste) a few times till lvl 59. I would love more cities and towns so that we'll have fresh unique locations. Lastly is that their isn't a more variety of gear. Everyone one running around in the same gear as you but in different shiny colors kinda takes most of the originality out of your character.

    Some features that needs a long hard look into for start is the Auction House. It is THE worst I have ever used. Making your AH web-like based is appalling cause for strange reasons it will get those internet errors, get white screen, or just not appear and have to wait on your end to fix it while I'm still playing the game. Another problems is the sell items is NOT part of the AH interface which means I have to Check AH on current prices, then click on the sell options which closes the AH window and loads that up and then I can sell and rinse and repeat that times how many items I want to sale. Last thing about it that's horrible search or lack their of. All you get is an search bar above and nothing else we have saw in other AH like item/lvl specific and the likes. Their's no reason for that so please fix it ASAP. 

    That's all for the auction house but their's more stiff like the Items falling threw world, getting stuck on bosses body (you're screw if this happens if you're solo or the last person standing unless you can kill it 1st), Getting stuck in walls (seems to be a karok only problem most of the time) the lack of a storage bank other then out mailboxes, and the most famous is the 5'o clock (PST) lag fest that comes w/ its own problems.

    Overall, I really Like the game, 4 out of 5 like but if they can address the issues then it will be that much better for it. I'm on the West Server w/ a lvl 49 Karok and a lvl 47 Lann currently so see ya in game.


PS: Sorry if you don't see shadow in some pics. I usually turn them off in MMO's these days.
PSS: I would of did a video review but the in-game video recorder made it to laggy to get clear footage. Now you know their's that options in game tho and can be set to youtube quality.
PSSS: Special Thanks to a friend for mention this game to me.


BONUS!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Make of these pics I took as you like. Most were random. Except #4... I ended up in a mini alternate world. No# 1 however happened so quick that I was lucky to even get the SS off. Seriously.. WTF!




 

Aug 4, 2011

Summer of F2P MMO Quick Reviews

Lets get right into it shale we..


Forsaken World - This MMO is.... Interesting. You can level to 12-15 in probably a little more then six hrs but eventually, their will be a wall you have to go through. While you level, you'll probably notice their 2 money system in Soul and Gold. Soul money can't be traded in any way nor can be used in Auction houses while Gold money can be traded and use for everything else besides for some venders who want soul money. The ONLY way to gain Gold money is to do certain group quest and events. I just don't understand why they made it like this, I like to upgrade my items from auction house purchase but not being able to sucks.

Combat can be frustrating at times mainly due to you can't do ANYTHING while running unlike most MMO's especially if you're a range class. Guess they want it to be like resident evil, stand still and kill stuff. Overall, I didn't like it (you might maybe) and their's no chance I'll return to Forsaken World.



Extra Points for Where Jr. Comes From.
Champions Online - This game was to be the Marvel / X-men online game but the fall out result in this. The Stories are hits and alot of misses. The Combat is rather fun but IF you going to play for free, you can't make a custom archtypes like say, I wanted a dual pistols wielding dude Like Jr. (Picture right), you gonna have to subscribe or be stuck using the "Soidier" Archtype. Overall, it had potentials but it falls flat on it's face but I might play it again.



Spiral Knights - This MMO can take probably 1 to 2 hrs of your time per day unless you just stand in town due to you get 100 energy per 22hrs. Doing dungeons (10 per) and crafting cost energy ( depending on item, 10 to 800) but you can gain energy from buying it w/ game money or real money. The Dungeons are random and brings different challenges for your fight to go deeper into Haven. Combat is a simple hack "n" slash so nothing really special there. It's worth trying out and you don't even have to Download it.

You can Download all 3 from Steam or from their official site (or in Spiral Knight case, play from their site)

Their is one Game left out due to it need it's own review unlike the others. Will it be that good or really bad is for you to guess.