ngmoco's Eliminate Pro now available

By Tom Bramwell Published 3 November, 2009

Free FPS supported by microtransactions.

ngmoco has released its iPhone first-person shooter Eliminate Pro, and, in case you've missed the build-up, it's available for free.

That's because the ambitious four-player deathmatch game, which works over 3G and Wi-Fi, is supported by microtransactions.

The method is quite interesting. You start off with a stock of power cells, and it's only while you have these cells that you earn credits, which act as experience points and in-game currency for purchasing upgrades.

Once you run out of power cells, you have to wait over an hour for the server to refresh your stock of them. This is free, but if you want to continue earning credits in the meantime then you can always buy more cells via microtransaction.

In other words, Eliminate Pro is a free-to-play deathmatch game where you can speed up your character development by investing real money, but where you can still achieve the same goals for nothing if you spend more time playing.

As you can see from the screenshots on the App Store page, it's also a pretty handsome affair for the little old iPhone, and thanks to ngmoco's Plus+ network it supports friends lists (with invites) and leaderboards.

Controls-wise, it uses two on-screen joysticks for movement and aiming, and you can fire your weapon by tapping the screen or enabling auto-fire in the options.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Hendo #1 2 years ago

    I'm finding the movement speed to be ultra slow, but I'm unsure whether this is lag or dodgy sensitivity. I know you can change the speed of the mouse-look / right-stick, but don't think you can with the movement.

    Interesting way to get people to spend money on it, I very much doubt I will though.

  • poopmonster #2 2 years ago

    A classic case of over-hyped.

    You can't argue with the value (free), and production standards are high, but something inside me refuses to play it after seeing the price of in-app purchases... I can get Uncharted II or Batman for that kind of money.

    The fact that it costs more for lless skilled players and anyone who doesn't get along with the control scheme, iis well off.

  • Hendo #3 2 years ago

    @poopmonster

    The purchases are entirely fair - you pay only if you want to play for hours on end, while earning in-game credits.
    If you don't want to pay, you'll have to not earn in-game credits. It's not like you pay to play, you can easily play the game forever without spending a penny, but the in-patient players might want to buy their energy refills.

    I won't be, but I can't fault them for their method.

  • wizlon #4 2 years ago

    This would be a good game if the controls were actually workable, instead it's just an effort in frantically rubbing the screen and hoping someone runs and stands in front of you.

  • poopmonster #5 2 years ago

    @Hendo, I understand the motive and even the merit, but it's still a bit of a pants way to make money under a shroud of "but it's free otherwise".

    I'd be happy to pay a fiver up front for unlimited play, even pay for in-app updates. But I want to play when I want to play, and not at my expense. Their loss, simple as.

  • CaptainScarlet #6 2 years ago

    oh my god. just downloaded and played this! I gave it 10 minutes for me to warm to it but it was just shockingly bad to control. Deleted and rated at 1 star I'm afraid.

    I suppose that is the main issue with a free game app. As it didn't cost money there is a lot less incentive to spend much time getting into it. It's much easier to balk at the badness and delete it!

    Visually looked ok and ran smoothly, but again and sorry to go on about it but the controls are just unworkable!

  • Artemus #7 2 years ago

    It seems like a vehicle to sell overpriced DLC to me. You can play for something like ten minutes every four hours before you stop earning credits for free. If you want to carry on ranking up then have to pay real money to get any more. So surely the people that pay will almost always win due to their superior gear/weapons.

  • poopmonster #8 2 years ago

    Sad thing is they only need a handful of kids to make it pay bigtime. I call the greed card.