Combat Arms Beta Review

Combat Arms is the new kid on the MMOFPS genre block and it looks to remind you of your Counter-Strike days. It’s your basic 2 team war waged on small to medium scale maps, some with objectives some without. You have a arsenal of weaponry to chose from before you head off into battle and some gadgets too.

And right off the bat we have problems; first off to activate combat arms you have to sign up for a Nexon account, no big deal. However to get access to the beta you need to log into your account on their website and then enter your beta key there, not inside the combat arms interface. So the steps for signing up are download from Fileplanet, receive key to beta, install game, create account at Nexon, activate account, go to combatarms.nexon.net, login, activate your key, launch the game, login again, play. Seems like there are way to many steps to jump into a beta.

When you launch the game you are greeted with a choice of 4 player models, all male and another problem cropped up. When choosing your name you have to check your screen name before you can actually accept your character or else nothing happens. It would be helpful if you skipped the check and clicked on create it would just warn you if your name was taken and proceed everything was good.

Then you enter the game lobby, which reminded me of my days slumming in IRC, you chose a server, chose a channel, then chose a battle going on in that channel. Once again what seems like more needless options when all you really want to do is dive into the action. So you finaly jump into battle only to find out some controls might need to be adjusted or graphic options tweaked, guess what, if you don’t finish the round before exiting you will be penalized. So another problem arises, you can’t change any settings while during a match only after the match is over.

Alright so everything is all setup, you jump into battle and you immediately feel like you’ve warped back to Counter-Strike v1.3. The maps lack style and substance that makes them stand out, they just seem run of the mill, and they also have holes in them that I fell through on more than one occasion. The graphics and textures seem flat and the sounds sound like ones off of an 80’s sound FX record.

The action seems fast, however there doesn’t seem to be an ability to make a squad and the map only shows your team, even when the other team is firing. Running and normal walk all feel like you are on rollerblades and slow walk feels like you are stuck in the mud. I could also never get my mouse adjusted right, sometimes it would feel to lose and other times sluggish. I changed both the game setting and using my Razr’s on the fly adjustment and nothing dialed in perfectly.

Now you win a few round, get some cash and now you want to buy some gear. Only remember when Valve did that update where the guns prices fluctuate based on who buys what? Yeah this is worse, you have to buy your equipment in number of days you would like to use them. Now if I had to buy a gun and then buy ammunition every so often fine. Or maybe I have to buy ammunition and every 10 or 20 rounds I need to buy a cleaning kit so my gun doesn’t jam, I’m cool with that. But you mean to tell me I have to buy a gun on a per day basis? Seriously, if you are going to have a game set in modern day settings something need to be realistic.

Also for an MMOFPS it seemed very light on stats, usually everything is brimming over with XP and how much this does that to your stat tree. Only during rounds did I see where it showed how far I was from moving onto the next level, but even then stamina, strength, agility, aiming, etc nowhere to be found. There also doesn’t seem to be a global conflict that hangs in the balance as I win an lose matches. So my question is what’s the point of all this?

I can’t fault the developers from trying but this game seems to me like it will be sillborn from the moment of release unless drastic changes are made. There doesn’t seem to be a reason to keep playing, it offers nothing over the Battlefield and Call of Duty fanchises, in fact it seems stuck in the Counter-Strike days before Valve bought them.

Pros:

• There Was a Lot of Servers To Play on Filled With People.
• Upgradeable Weapons
• It’s Free

Cons:

• Dated Graphics
• Dated Sound
• Gameplay is Bland
• Upgradeable Weapons Are Purchased by Days of Use

Conclusion: Only for the person who must play every FPS ever.