Top 5 Free-to-Play MMORPGs
Over the past few years MMORPG‘s have gone through a bit of a change regarding the way they are funded. More and more of them are turning to a free-to-play model to sustain a player base. However, free-to-play MMO no longer means some browser-based 2D cutesy import from Japan. Some serious hard hitters of the MMO genre are now turning free-to-play. Here’s our list of the top 5.
5. Age of Conan
Age of Conan
Age of Conan had a bit of a rough ride on release. The first 20 levels were brilliantly stitched together, whilst the rest of the game was somewhat in disarray. Thankfully it’s survived its turbulent birth and worked hard to patch out its rough edges, to become one of the most brutal MMO’s available today.
Their F2P model restricts some of the character classes and slots, but there is still enough in there to keep most casual MMO players occupied. And most importantly, you can still behead your enemies with a few swift blows of your broadsword.
4. City of Heroes
City of Heroes
City of Heroes maybe one of the older MMOs out there, but that by no means limits it’s fun factor. Recent updates have seen some restructuring to the opening zones making them much less of a grind, and a switch so you get your ‘travel powers’ much earlier.
Because of it’s age, there is a huge amount of content and customisation in-game. Couple that with the lack of restrictions NCSoft have put on free players (no level cap restriction, loads of costume parts, most zones available at no extra cost) and it makes CoH well worth a look.
3. DC Universe Online
DC Universe Online
More superheroes, but this time some names your more likely to be familiar with. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash, to mention but a few. There is also a host of villains to work for, from Joker to Lex Luther, to Talia al Ghul, pretty much every major hero and villain from DC’s universe is represented here.
SOE do place some restrictions on Free Players (limited character slots, inventory & bank slots, trading etc…), but if you fancy checking out DCU, it’s possible to play through 30 levels of superhero/villain goodness. Also, you only need to spend $5 in the online store to gain access to the mid-level ‘Premium’ account which raises the level of most of the restrictions to most casual players would be comfortable with.
2. Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online
STO is a game that has come along in leaps and bounds since it’s release in 2010. Issues with the lack of ‘Trekkiness’ were solved. Lots more content was added, both by developers Cryptic, and by players themselves through the brilliant Foundry feature. A combat overhaul was done, to improve the phaser firing aspect of the game, plus more customisation to costumes, interiors to player ships, and various pets and other ‘fluff’ items were added.
Overall it’s a hugely improved game from it’s rather rushed release. Once again F2P players will have some limits on their account. Less character slots, limits on money and inventory storage, chat and mail restrictions, and they’ll be locked out of the Foundry Creator. However, the level cap will still be achievable, and all sector and missions are accessible on a F2P account, so you won’t be short of things to do! STO doesn’t actually go free-to-play till Jan 17th 2012 – But when it does, I urge you to take a journey into the final frontier.
1. Lord of the Rings Online
Lord of the Rings Online
As huge Tolkien fans, LotRO was a MMO all the gamers here in GeekTown fell in love with when it was first released. From those early quests avoiding hungry hobbits delivering pies in the Shire, to battling trolls and even a Balrog in the later game, it’s extremely easy to lose yourself in the massive world Turbine have created.
There are restrictions on F2P players. The amount of cash you can carry is limited, and you can’t auction items. Your also only allowed 1 character slot per server (with more purchasable), and some of the higher level areas need to be purchased. You can however level your hobbit, dwarf, elf or human up to the game’s level cap, and it’s a great way to test out a superb MMO without having to outlay a penny. If you’re a fan of Tolkien, it’s worth installing even if it’s just to wander around the Shire.
Review: James Gunn’s Super
Super - Out on Blu-ray and DVD on 1st August 2011
Super is the latest film from Troma alumni James Gunn, and it follows the story of Frank D’Arbo (played by The US Office’s Rainn Wilson). Frank is a pretty normal guy – he’s got a house, a crappy job, a belief in God, and a recovering drug addict wife Sarah (played by Liv Tyler). Is he happy? No, not really… but he’s okay with that. It’s all ‘fine’ until the dastardly Jacques (Kevin Bacon in true weaselly evil form) turns up and steals Sarah away from him and gets her hooked back on the white stuff.
At this point Frank becomes somewhat unhinged and after a rather visceral vision from god (aided along by a great cameo from the ever watchable Nathon Fillion as The Holy Avenger), Frank decides to become The Crimson Bolt! Armed with only his trusty pipe wrench he’ll rid the city of scum, and get back his girl!
Super is the sort of low-budget independent film making that really brings writer/director Gunn back to his Troma roots. On the one hand it has an extremely dark tone with some very twisted sensibilities, on the other, some lighter comic moments. However, neither seem to gel particularly well and hit the darkly-comic target it seems to be aiming for.
Rainn Wilson is passable as the lead, but for me works much better once Ellen Page arrives as the rather neurotic Libby (aka Boltie). Not only does she give Wilson someone to bounce off, but also steal the movie from under him. Kevin Bacon turns in a nice balance of slimey evil mixed with a jittery deviousness as the villain of the piece, whilst Liv Tyler is perfectly fine during her extremely brief screen time.
I have been desperately trying to ignore the Kick-Ass shaped elephant in the room, but you really can’t review Super without some comparison to the aforementioned ‘reality superhero’ film. Gunn apparently had been working on a script for Super since 2002, but as Matthew Vaughn’s movie beat Super to the punch, it makes Gunn’s film look like an attempt to cash in, even though I know that’s not the case.
Overall Super is a strange, off-the-wall little film. Dark yes, but not quite comic enough to balance it out. Some good performances from Page and Bacon, and I can’t help but cheer any time Fillion pops up in a movie (he SO should have been Green Lantern). But the lack of cohesion in the direction and story lets it down. I really wanted to like this film, I just wish it had been a bit more… well… Super…
Super is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 1st August 2011
6/10 – An Off-the-wall B movie that very dark, but not so comic.
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X-Men: First Class: Review
X-Men: First Class Review
Following on from GeekTown’s restricted release of our teaser views and initial verdict on Twentieth Century Fox’s latest offering to the X-men saga I am delighted to finally unveil the hotly anticipated review! Prequels are a risky business and after the haphazard Wolverine origins story (which granted, did have naked Hugh Jackman in it, but even that couldn’t truly redeem it) I can safely bet that every single reviewer was prepared for another superhero nosedive and resounding cinematic belly flop. But gosh, I do enjoy being pleasantly surprised. I should lead on where we left off…
“Funny, engrossing and seductive, X-Men: First Class has claws and curves in all the right places.”
Charles Xavier
One of the central reasons that X-Men: First Class is so very enjoyable and far easier to subscribe to than its predecessors is because instead of creating a parallel reality, it slips the illusion around our current world with significant and humanity shaping historical events. Unbeknownst to most modern historians, major political clashes such as the Cuban missile crisis and Nazi Germany’s choke-hold during WWII were witnessed and transformed by mutants. Director Matthew Vaughn half jokingly pointed out during the roundtable interview at the weekend that mutant interference makes a lot more sense than what was actually reported during the infamous nuclear standoff between Russia and the USA and he’s not far wrong. Whilst the story is outrageous, it is so in the best way, in a way that you can get behind and cheer on with a big grin.
Erik Lehnsherr
The main action of X-Men: First Class is set in the 1960s prior to the turbulence of Nixon’s reign, at the height of the Cold War and the dawn of the Space era. However we are taken slightly further back still, to the 1940s and Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier’s incredibly opposite childhoods, where the boy who will become Magneto is discovered and tortured in a concentration camp in Poland whilst his antithesis enjoyed and exploited the spoils of wealth and telepathy. You may experience déjà vu as the film opens, frame for frame, the way that the original X-men movie did with Magneto’s dark initiation into mutant life. Matthew Vaughn elaborates on Bryan Singer’s introduction for Erik by delving further into his butchered childhood of murder, pain and torment at the hands of a power hungry Dr Schmidt; portrayed by a splendidly evil Kevin Bacon. In the same way that Wolverine was manipulated and molded by William Stryker in X2, Erik is depicted as a mutant test subject. Erik’s story from frightened child to vengeful mutant adult creates the backbone for X-Men: First Class.
Nicholas Hoult & Jennifer Lawrence
The film is automatically absorbing as it balances the truer elements of superhero fantasy without sacrificing characterization and tone for gratuitous explosions and incoherent, over packed storylines. The cast is a real dolly mixture at first glance and it comes as no surprise that it left many anticipators with their hackles raised. Sizable talent such as Oliver Platt and Jason Flemyng (Azazel) play in modest supporting roles alongside lesser known actors and actresses like Lucas Till (Havoc) and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) in considerably larger character roles. However, Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman have done a marvellous job defining each and every character, giving them all a sense of individuality and self containment that we arguably haven’t seen since the original X-men movie. Notable performances include an unexpected surge of acting prowess from Nicholas Hoult who plays a startlingly convincing Hank McCoy. From child star to teenage TV drama and now Hollywood, all I can say is bravo Nick!
X-Men: First Class
The characters effectively straddle the spectrum between Good, Evil and Misled with charm and intelligence and just the right amount of dark, raw emotion that really makes a great superhero movie. Charles Xavier is a prime example as he is an extraordinarily difficult character to relate to, but James McAvoy does an admirable job as he leads the audience through Xavier’s cocky handsome young adulthood into his future as the infamous Professor X. The journey shows the bald, wheelchair bound and monstrously powerful authority figure we had grown to recognize as an energetic, virile, fun loving young man with a full head of hair and one hell of a sprint time! McAvoy is a credible and charismatic Xavier and worthy of quite hefty praise for helping to endear the audience to someone who is, on paper, quite an unapproachable character. X-Men: First Class elegantly weaves a variety of intriguing and sensitive character relationships, not merely through Xavier and Erik but also a beautifully realized Mystique who provides a dominating outlet for the X-men’s sense of responsibility, vanity and mutant identity. Michael Fassbender is a devilishly attractive homage to classic Bond, only infinitely cooler, in his embodiment of Erik Lehnsherr and in this critic’s opinion, he carries the film. Alongside Fassbender, Kevin Bacon gives one of the finest performances of his seesaw career. He is the perfect villain; frightening, smooth and gifted. So many comic book villains have turned out to be lamentably camp and underdeveloped when they’ve reached the big screen but Shaw is a refreshing slice of horrifying.
In truth, the film is not without its flaws but in many ways these little foibles endearingly add to the entertainment! For example the rather adorable way that Fassbender’s Irish accent starts to trickle into his passionate display during the film’s climax or the lacklustre ghost of the deleted love story between Charles and the vaguely redundant CIA agent Moira. I’ll let you discover the other failings for yourself because that really is part of the fun, no? You get to moan at length about what you would have done differently and it’s one of the few movie genres where everybody gets away with acting like they could be the Coppola of comic books. But there is definitely much more praise than disappointment to be had for X-Men: First Class and overall its blemishes are minor in comparison to the film’s epic embrace of the genre, its deft handling of a young cast in another century and the carefully balanced relationship between superhero morality and human adventure.
8/10 – Funny, engrossing and seductive, X-Men: First Class has claws and curves in all the right places.
The Dark Knight Rises Get’s A Villain!
The Dark Knight Rises get's a villain - Bane!
It might be over a year away, but we all know how much Christopher Nolan loves his viral marketing, and he’s recently release the first of, what I expect to be, many viral marketing campaigns Some of the more technically minded fans managed to figure out an audio file that appeared on the Dark Knight Rises website revealed a hashtag (#thefirerises) which when retweeted, led to the reveal of the image you see above. The Batman villain – Bane, played by the excellent Tom Hardy. Contrary to the awful mangled version of the character in Schumacher’s Batman & Robin that showed him as a mindless thug, Bane is a much more interesting villain than that movie gave him credit for.
For those that don’t know your Batman history, Bane was born in Peña Dura prison in the Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca. He is highly intelligent, having spent his time reading everything he could get his hands on, and being taught by a range of people, from other hardened inmates, to a classical education from a Jesuit priest. Prison gym also helped him build his impressive hulking frame, and the tough prison system taught him how to fight… A mindless thug he most certainly is not…
Whilst at the prison, Bane is forced to test a new experimental drug called Venom, which at first nearly kills him, but he survives only to find the Venom massively increases his strength, so long as he is dosed regularly.
In Batman lore the thing Bane is most famous for is ‘breaking the Bat’. After escaping from Peña Dura, Bane blows the wall of Arkham Asylum allowing all it’s deranged ‘patients’ to escape. Bane uses this tactic to wear Batman down over the next 3 month as he tries to recapture Joker, Scarecrow, Two-Face and all the other inmates Bane let loose on Gotham. Having also worked out Bruce Wayne is Batman, Bane waits at Wayne Manor to confront an exhausted Batman, and in the ensuing fight breaks Batman’s back.
Another Batman villain?
Bane is a great choice for Nolan. He’s a major Batman enemy, but not too ‘out there’, and can be played with a similar level of realism as Scarecrow and Joker. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles the Venom side of the Bane’s character too.
What’s also intriguing about the image above is the white and red dots in the background… A hint at another villain maybe? The white dot looks suspiciously like an eye shape… Deadshot possibly? That could mean the Suicide Squad… What do you think? Any ideas, leave them in the comments!
The Dark Knight Rises is due in cinemas 20th July 2012, and I really really can’t wait!
New Green Lantern Trailer!
Brand new trailer for Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, starring the Marvel to DC hopping Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, the first human Green Lantern. The more I see of this, the more i’m looking forward to it! 
Green Lantern will be shining in cinemas on the 17th June 2011.
Green Lantern Plot Synopsis
In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan.
Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot, but the Green Lanterns have little respect for humans, who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle, and along with his determination and willpower, he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears, he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax…he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all.
Green Lantern: The 4 Minute WonderCon Footage
If you weren’t lucky enough to be at WonderCon this year, you won’t have seen this awesome 4 minute trailer that got the crowd all excited for Martin Campbell‘s upcoming Green Lantern movie. Thankfully, the footage has now also been released online, and frankly, it looks awesome!
Ryan Reynolds dons the skin tight green suit to play Green Lantern Hal Jordan, the first human ever inducted into the Green Lantern Corps, and Mark Strong takes on the role of Hal’s mentor Sinestro (although for those of you that know the comics, you know that doesn’t last!).
The cast also includes Blake Lively as Carol Ferris – Hal’s love interest, Temuera Morrison (that’s Jango Fett to the Star Wars fans) as Abin Sur who recruit’s Hal into the Corps, Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller – boss of Checkmate & the Suicide Squad, Peter Sarsgaard as the psionic Dr. Hector Hammond, and Tim Robbins as Senator Robert Hammond.
Green Lantern goes on general release in the UK on the 17th of June 2011, and I for one, can’t wait!
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