War Rock

By: CAPTAIN GORDON EDWARD
Date: Sunday, October 15, 2006

A lot can be said for a company that will allow you to play their games for free, and the K2 Network allows you to do just that. With War Rock they allow you to dip your feet, or even jump all in for free, or with a paid subscription. It is a growing trend online to have demos online to try out, but with them it is the full game. Now of course there are a lot of other FPS games out on the market, and a lot of them are good. What is not the case for most others is that they do charge money, and for quite a few college students it can be a problem paying to play games in their spare time. Since it is free though, it is not as refined as other FPS games but nonetheless it is still very satisfying to play. I will further remind though that the game benefits moderately if you pay monthly for the service. You can unlock additional features that are difficult to obtain through regular methods.

This is not the first for the K2 Network as they also host an MMORPG for people. Likewise with that game, you may choose to pay to play but you can still play for free. After interviewing them at E3, their strategy is to allow people a choice on how far they wish to commit. This mentality brings new people to their game, which allows their battlefields to be filled with opponents. The overall choice on gameplay style is great in the end. I have personally noticed with my online habits that when it comes to monthly paid games (like World of Warcraft) that if I am paying to play, it feels more like a chore rather than just an entertaining experience. That is just my opinion though.

This game borrows a lot from other FPS games, like Counter Strike Source, or Battlefield. It borrows core mechanics of walking around and shooting from Counter Strike, which is a great game to base yourself off of. From there it evolves and borrows the vehicles aspect from Battlefield, and does that aspect very well. The melding of these worlds also allow for a more lenient system for gameplay, where while it is realistic when it comes to the battle mechanics, they have streamlined the gameplay to allow for the most fun in the shortest amount of time. On one map they have four airbases close to each other, just so that people can hop into helicopters to constantly take battles to the sky.

Moving beyond that, you have a set of five different character types, and they work well to diversify the game. They range from a medic to a heavy weapons operative, and with each class comes with unique weapons and equipment. All characters have the option of driving the vehicles, which leaves tactical battles wide open. The nitty gritty of most battles comes down with how diverse your team is, because certain characters are best against others. Further improving the game, there is a levelling system that can help you be the leader of the team, if you are a higher rank than anyone else. You gain points by killing your opponents or completing the objectives of maps to score points. Most of the battle styles (like death match) are borrowed from other FPS, which makes it easy to jump in without needing a giant tutorial.

As you play, you will gain money to buy weapons for an allotted time. This is where their free / paid subscriptions vary, and of course the people that pay for the game will generally have more options for weapons. I did find that for the unpaid account, money accumulated slowly but it was still possible to purchase the higher end weapons. It generally meant that people would need to spend more time to obtain them. I was generally content with the weapons that are offered without needing to pay for them, and while they may not have been as powerful, they were still great to use.

What I like about the game is that there is a punk buster system that allows for the K2 Network to keep out cheaters, and make sure everyone is using the newest patch of the game. This may cause connections problems, so hopefully they fix that soon. Occasionally though I have been blocked out by punk buster after doing an update, which is quite annoying, since I should have been ready to play. Another issue that the game has is that it may not work initially with your router, which is quite disappointing. Of course this is meant for the security of the game, but it can be annoying.

In the end though this is a fun game to play. The game is still in beta, and there are many features still that they wish to add to it. Since updates are automatically downloaded to your computer when you log on, it makes it easy to keep up to date. If the punk buster system were a bit more lenient it would make it easier to connect to the game, which may require you to open up a few ports in case you are using a firewall. The game is definitely worth checking out. All and all, Captain Gordon gives War Rock a B+.

You may find out more about War Rock through the following link. War Rock Online

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com