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MMO PC Review by Oli Welsh
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One of gaming's darkest and most persuasive arts is that of the success sound: the abstract audio cue that tells you instantaneously, yes, well done, you did it, you got another one, yes, yes, more. These sounds are utterly pleasurable and addictive: think of Sonic's tinkling rings, or LittleBigPlanet's popping bubbles; of Peggle's explosion into Ode to Joy, of Zelda's chest-opening fanfares and chimes, or of the monolithic, bass-heavy surge of a World of Warcraft level-up. Guitar Hero is just an exercise in making sure the success sound never stops.
Free Realms, Sony Online Entertainment's new casual MMO, is a symphony of scarily brilliant success sounds. It's a non-stop barrage of them. A constant sugar-rush of perfectly tuneful bubble-wrap pops, jangling coins and jaunty jingles follows you as you run about its colourful cartoon world, racing, fighting, collecting, exploring, crafting, organising, training, shopping - but above all, succeeding, and being rewarded. Free Realms never stops tickling the pleasure centres of your brain or handing you sweets. But like tickling, and sweets, it can get a bit much after a while.
Free Realms is essentially 'My First MMO'. It's aimed at the teens and tweens who flock to virtual worlds like Club Penguin but it's carefully crafted not to exclude their parents or older players. Its non-specific modern-fantasy world sports all the ruthlessly focus-tested familial bonhomie of an animated film by Dreamworks or Disney. The gameplay, too, edges cautiously from casual mini-games and makework quests into a great introduction to proper MMORPG combat, not to mention tower defence, trading cards, chess and a devastatingly addictive tile-matching game.
The game is free to play through the Free Realms website, with SOE making its money through the sale of in-game items and "membership", a five-dollar monthly sub. The latter's main draw is five more "jobs" (character classes, essentially), alongside leaderboard rankings, two additional character slots - although a single character can switch between all the jobs in the game - and plenty of exclusive quests and items.
It's unlikely he's packing a Taser and tear gas.
SOE is the first really big player to move into the free-to-play market - just beating EA to the punch, which launches Battlefield Heroes soon and has just freed up Battleforge - and boy does it show. Free Realms' technology, polish and professionalism are astounding. It dramatically raises the quality bar for free-to-play games - in fact, in some areas, user interface especially, it does so for all MMOs, not least SOE's own output. This is the most important and confident game to come out of SOE since EverQuest changed the landscape of online gaming 10 years ago.
You can start with the staggering ease of use. After a minimal initial download and installation - just a few dozen megabytes - Free Realms launches from the website in a minute or so, and feeds the game content to you through constant streaming. Yes, the website you launch the game from is a little slow, and the servers, all currently based in the US, lag occasionally. And yes, you do find yourself looking at a fair few loading screens as you hop between locations and gameplay styles in-game. But considering how large and graphically lush the game is, it's incredible, and a blessed liberation from a life of patching. It's the future.
It's not like you're being delivered a glorified Flash game either. Free Realms' visuals aren't cutting-edge, taking their cues mostly from WOW's enthusiastic cartooning - but it is a very good-looking game, with rich, glowing colours, sparking effects, a great sense of solidity and a luscious soft-focus sheen.
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Free Realms
Latest Features
Latest Videos
Free Realms: Goal Time [0] 6 October, 2009
Free Realms - Jobs [2] 13 May, 2009
Latest News
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Free Realms adds football mini-game [4]
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Free Realms for PS3 in mid-2010 [3]
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Free Realms to break 4m users soon [7]
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Number of Free Realms players hits 2m [20]
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Over a million sign up for Free Realms [12]
Latest Screenshots
17 March, 2009 [0]
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Comments: 1-35 of 35 in total
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George Roper
27/05/09 @ 16:42
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Brilliant, cry the bitter HARDCORE tears, Doinkfail JUSTICE and HONOUR seekers! \o/
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0
Awful review! I have logs (and we all know saying it makes it true) that say the reviewer played just 1 hour! I've played lots more. Well, 11. I haven't even scratched the surface. Oh, just in case anyone's new to EG, that first sentence was another Darkfail reference.
It really is bloody brilliant though, certainly my MMO of choice, though not for people who need combat and guns like Oli Welsh, the big wuss. Kidding, I think the critisisms listed are mostly fair. Nice review Oli :D Just to elaborate on one thing: "The Card Duelist job I can't comment on with any degree of authority, other than to note that SOE's work in this area - with its EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies spin-offs - is respected by those in the know." If you're a fan of TCGs like Magic and Pokemon, as well as god knows how many knock offs, the Card Duelist class is pleasantly familiar and easy to play, yet with enough depth to allow for great last minute come backs or fiendish tricks. It's great fun if you're into TCGs.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 27/05/09 @ 18:15
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EvilBob_leeds
27/05/09 @ 17:38
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I can't even get the Free Realms homepage to load!
Use a computer, not a toaster ;-) It's downloading ok for me, and my contention ratio at this time in the evening is usually shocking. I'd have a word with your ISP.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 27/05/09 @ 18:39
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VandelayIndustries
27/05/09 @ 17:56
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Pah! Windows only, Oscar Wieselnose will have to wait :(
So when's PS3 version coming?
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 27/05/09 @ 18:57
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With a membership you also get a free trading card booster pack each month (10 virtual cards and 1 virtual item), which sell for US $4.00 in the item shop, effectively meaning the membership is only US $1 per month, at least if you might have been tempted to buy extra cards each month.
The kart racing and demolition derby work fine for me, just took a little bit to get used to the control. I wonder if some of the problem was the servers being US only? Sony need to get some more servers outside the US set up; and have the physical card packs and station cash cards sold outside the USA too, as some non-USA people are having problems with the available payment options. Of the combat classes I actually like Archer the best so far. But collecting and mining seem to be taking up most of my time. Fun game, nice smooth graphics and interface, excellent sound. Relaxing and fun game to play when taking a break from the more traditional variety. Still needs some things fixed and some content is missing (kart), and hopefully they'll be adding more content in general over time. |
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Silvervein
27/05/09 @ 18:57
-1
So basically, it's a game that takes the mass appeal of mmo's down to absolute common (lowest) denominator, which is only one step above a game that plays itself, and at the same time pats the poor sod playing it at the back and serves him cookies and milk?
So, the reason to play this thing is...?
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 27/05/09 @ 19:58
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Waffleaber
27/05/09 @ 19:07
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Loving the first paragraph there. The idea of a TCG class is enough to get me to try it.
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The TCG is a key factor here, it's 'free', yes the booster packs aren't cheap but if your commiting to membership you get one for free per month and then the trading side kicks in. It's a fairly sound game system but being in the know about these things it's normally the second set where you get to tell if the game is going to remain balanced. If SOE futher the support by adding player tournaments etc, it'll really corner a nishe there, hence as the arcticle states why Battleforge just went free.
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iokthemonkey
27/05/09 @ 20:14
+1
I think that's a fair review. Obviously it's designed for the young 'uns and so it is all a bit ADDlookatthisnowgoanddothiswelldoneyougetacookienowgoanddoth
isotherthingandhoorayyougotsomethingelse and unfortunately I think it gives a lot up early on and after that, it's... more of the same, unfortunately. It IS brilliantly done and when it is good - as Oli points out, in the Chef Mini games, for example - it's a lot of fun. Also, the kart racing is great and I've not experienced any response problems. Bizarrely though - for a "kids' game" - it's pretty much a grindfest and it does force a lot of menial activities/daily upkeep stuff (such as resource gathering) onto you if you want to get anywhere. It's a charming, very cute game with some superb music (the title theme just sticks with you like The Sims theme does) and there's a lot to be had here, but it's all just a bit paradoxical: on the one hand it's shallow, but on the other it's a big time-sink of a game. |
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RedSparrows
27/05/09 @ 20:33
+1
i made a char on realm 3. looks nice so far, the hills in the tutorial area scream WoW at me. Which is good, but ofc that's just geometry and cheap graphics. Seems alright, certainly aimed 'lower'. i exited the tutorial and it began to dl a load, so i quit.
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timberwolf
27/05/09 @ 23:04
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incredibly shallow... no use looking for depth beyond a few hours play. would anyone put real money into this... even kids ?
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+1
@timberwolf
Given the amount of pets, membership jobs and custom outfits weapons and clothing people are using in game - definitely! I'm subbed. It works out as £3.90 for me in real money which is less than half-price over any other p2p mmo out there. I would argue that it has more depth than the next leading name. As people said its regularly maintained, there is going to be new races added as well as at least 4 new areas off the current map. And In the existing world there are placeholder NPCs and locations for more activates and quests, like fishing, ice skating and football (to name a few).
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 28/05/09 @ 08:52
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The main reason to play it for me, Silvervein, is that it's fun. Maybe not if you play it as a hardcore game, but I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Haven't bought any cash shop items yet, although I'm tempted by some of them. I have a free membership through my station account, but I'm considering setting aside $5/month for cash shop purchases if I see something I really want.
The cooking is my favourite mmo crafting system - I really liked Vanguard's crafting, but does it let you slice and fry stuff? Vanguard still wins out on harvesting, though - Free Realms has a great harvesting minigame, but in Vanguard when you chop down a tree, you actually do cause a tree to fall down.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 28/05/09 @ 15:16
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notmyrealname
28/05/09 @ 23:15
+1
hm, a good mmo for a change. And almost bug free on release I heard. Not that I care, but good to see a proper mmo launch for once.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 29/05/09 @ 00:18
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Comments: 1-35 of 35 in total
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