Review: Game of Thrones Ascent

Hey there, LMS here. I'll say this up front: this review doesn't follow my normal requirements for a review. It supposedly is an MMO (much like how Wartune or Call of Roma are) but I've yet to come across multiplayer elements. There are no healing classes or options to my knowledge. And I generally can't stand this game. I tried getting into it, I can assure you. Game of Thrones was something I'd been told I'd enjoy. I had every intention of getting into the series when it first came out but my brain decided to go off into outer space and next thing I know, I've forgotten about it and it's gained some sort of cult-following.

So watching me try to make decisions in this game, like which house to swear my fealty to, would probably be vastly entertaining for those that actually follow the damn thing. But for me, I kinda stared blankly at the screen and tried to make the best objective decisions I could. It was really, really hard because I had no idea what I was actually getting myself into. Which house should I swear to? Is there one that's generally good or evil? Are they all just sort of... there? Who the hell are these people, anyway? How does this or doesn't this affect my game? What the fuck am I actually doing?

I don't think I ever got the answers to those questions.

TERA now F2P

So, I'd been poking around, looking for a game to play to keep my brain occupied. I wanted something free to play, mostly because with my crappy internet, there was no way I would want to pay a subscription for something I'd only be able to play a handful of hours a week. Someone had posted a comment on my Blade and Soul review that the game was super awesome, so I decided to check it out.

On Blade and Soul's FAQ, one of the questions asked if the game would be implementing game play features that are in Guild Wars 2. The answer was, of course, that Blade and Soul, like Guild Wars 2, offers innovative mechanics and such that basically change up and revolutionize the MMO industry. That got me thinking.... TERA was pretty interesting, too, with it's action-oriented combat. The graphics were pretty, questing wasn't bad. What was the cost of it again? Hell, how was the game even doing since my original pre-view of the game and my review of it during its CBT testing. It'd been over a year since I pre-viewed the game and at the end of this month, it'll be a year since I participated in the CBT testing.

So, I poked around at TERA's site. And, much to my surprise, it became free-to-play. I really do mean that I was incredibly surprised by this. To me, TERA was going to be one of those games that would have remained subscription-based like World of Warcraft. Or, at the very least, would convert to that pay-for-the-game-but-pay-no-subscriptions model that Guild Wars 2 uses.

"Why the sudden jump?" I had asked myself as I looked at different forum threads and such discussing this. Evidently TERA switched over to the F2P model just over a month ago on February 5th. I know that there is a push in the gamer community to remove subscription costs in MMOs; hell, it was part of the reason why a) I stopped playing WoW and b) found private servers after a while. So, I'm not terribly surprised by this information.

Review: Wartune

Hey guys, LMS here. First of all, I'm sooooooooo sorry for not posting in... what, friggin' four months? Good god. It's been sucky at home, my internet has been crapping out on me so much that I haven't been able to play much of MMOs except for when I visit my boyfriend, which is once every two weeks, for the weekend. Basically, I haven't been able to play MMOs much. I know, I know, it's not much of an excuse.

Also, I know I had said I was going to review Lineage 2 but, honestly.... It makes me cry. For some reason the NCSoft download client just kinda wants to repeatedly kick me in the face because downloading and installing the game hardly ever works for me. And, of course, when I was going to originally sit back and write the review for it, the friggin' game decided it wanted to throw out a download patch. I swear I nearly tore out my hair. Forget the game itself. That's bad in its own right. But trying to be able to PLAY the game was just as bad, if not worse. So, I kinda gave up on reviewing it because it literally gave me headaches when I thought about it.

BUT! There IS an MMO that I had been able to play, because it was browser-based and therefore lighter on my internet. I played it for several weeks, actually. I liked it at first, mostly because it was something new and shiny for browser games, at least in my experience. I then fell out of it because, frankly, I was getting bored. But I recently received an email from them, which was basically "come baaaaaaaaaaaack please! I have shiny things that you'll love! -dangles keys-" so I decided to give it a shot as I have been itching for something new to play that I could, in fact, play in my spare time.

That game? Wartune. Haven't heard of it? If you poke around on Facebook's games, I'm sure you've at least seen advertisements for it. It has gone under several different names but the "official" (I think?) name is Wartune. It's supposedly the, like, "up and coming" browser MMO. My quick summary: It's shiny and new on the outside, but it sucks on the inside. It has great potential, sure, but it falls flat on its face. Hard. Really hard. And here's why.

logo found on Google, with a URL that makes my eyes bleed when I look at it.