FreeStyle Street Basketball MMO Rocks

Why is it that the few very awesome free to play MMOs out there don’t get the attention they deserve? Everytime I log onto FreeStyle Street Basketball on GameKiss, I’m upset to see so few people online. I’ve played a lot of sports MMOs from FIFA Online to Pangya. I’ve even played tons of racing MMOs like Need for Speed World and Heat Online, but none of these games are nearly as fun as FreeStyle Street Basketball. Why on Earth am I praising this game so much? Well, because it’s both simple and fun. I think the best MMORPGs out there aren’t the most graphically advanced or complicated. The most fun titles are DEFINITELY the easiest to pick up and play. Games like WonderKing and Runes of Magic for example are successful because they’re so easy to pick up and play. Other titles like NEO Online from PlayOMG and World of Tanks for example are a bit more difficult to learn. I never managed to “get into” Eve Online because it’s such a hard game to learn. I tried playing the MMO Free Trial FOUR times, and not once could I stick with the game. Black Prophecy from Gamigo does look fascinating though and aims to be more “fun” than Eve Online. While Eve is more tactical and strategy oriented, Black Prophecy aims to be more hands on actiony – something Eve Online severely lacks.

Anyway, I’m getting a bit distracted. FreeStyle is fun, because you can hop on, play one or two matches (5 minutes each) and be done with it. No large time commitment nothing. I guess one of the reasons I like most MMOFPS games is because of this same reason – small time commitment. The thing about FreeStyle is that I don’t even like Basketball. I never watch it on TV or know anything about it, but I can still launch the game and have a ton of fun. I do wish the game offered more variety in terms of gameplay modes, because as is there aren’t many ways to vary up the game. Unlike Zone4: Fight District or Lost Saga from OGPlanet, FreeStyle has like 3 game modes and that’s it. Either way, you can still play the game for fun here and there. The game’s story isn’t exactly updated often, but it’s still good enough for me.

What sucks is that the game has a low playerbase. And as we all know – games with low playerbases eventually end up in the MMO Graveyard. I think games like Runes of Magic and Perfect World will likely be around for a long while. As will other successful MMORPGs like The Lord of the Rings Online and Fiesta Online, but FreeStyle is a game that I suspect won’t last another full year, as the game never had a big playerbase, and the community isn’t growing either. Plus GameKiss announced that they would shut down Valkyrie Sky last week. When a company shuts one game down, it means the company is having financial problems. That could eventually spill over into GhostX (Another game by the same company. A scifi MMORPG) and eventually into FreeStyle Street Basketball. Time will tell though.

New Wave of MMORTS Games

The term MMORTS used to refer to cheesy empire building Evony like games. I say cheesy, because at the moment there are easily 100+ browser based empire building MMOs like Travian, Caesary,Tribal Wars, War of Legends and hundreds more. These games, for some reason, are absurdly popular. All of these games are browser-based as well. This is all about to change though.

GamesCampus – the company behind MLB Dugout Heroes, Asda Story, Shot Online, Legend of Edda and numerous other games, launched a revolutionary new MMORTS called Soul Master. I say revolutionary because it’s actually client based, and get this – fun. It mixes action MMORPG elements with pikmin like strategy. The combat is fluid and well paced. The levels themselves feel a bit similar to Dragonica Online and Divine Souls – as players can run through each level multiple times under different difficulties. For some odd reason, this particular system of progression has become really popular. Fists of Fu from Outspark and even Vindictus from Nexon employ similar progression systems. I think Lunia from ijji was the first game to have stage based linear gameplay. Each stage is instanced. Luckily, the main town area acts as a social hub where players can grab quests, buy items and interact with others.

Soul Master is definitely going to shake things up as it’s actually an original game. It feels a bit like Divine Souls, but with a twist. It’s not just a straight up action MMORPG. Players have to utilize clever strategy if they expect to complete a level. Luckily, if a stage proves too difficult, players can party up with others to complete it. All of this should be very familiar to those who have played Dragonica Online or even GhostX from GameKiss to a degree – as in its core Soul Master is very similar to these action MMORPGs. It only really differences itself by mixing RTS components with its gameplay, which actually work really well and are quite fun.

Have you played Soul Master yet? If not, definitely give it a chance! It’s a fun game.