Nowadays it seems as if every man and his dog are creating free-to-play games, of which the MMO market certainly isn’t short of its share. Rift, Trion Worlds fantasy MMORPG has recently unveiled that it will be joining the popular movement from subscription based play to offer its existing and new players a free gaming experience. They promise “No trials, no tricks, no traps.”
Call me crazy (please do), but something about the new gameplay trailer for HARDWARE Shipbreakers reminded me of that classic FPS/RTS mash-up Battlezone. Something about not being set on Earth, the sounds of the radar and the voice overs made me think of the unique game. Back on track, after last weeks teaser trailer, this new video features some in-game footage with the UI and a little bit of action between some funky flying units and a squad of vehicles led by that massive Baserunner truck from last week. Check the video out after the break.
As I’ve been working through my backlog of emails this evening, I came across a message with the following title. “Homeworld Creators Release New Hardware Trailer: Look at the size of that TRUCK!” I totally ignored the majority of the title and thought “Oooooh, trucks, yay” and hastily headed over to the video linked within the message, a video you can see below the jump. It contains a truck, a monster of a truck, perhaps the biggest truck I’ve ever seen. It belongs to an upcoming RTS from some of the team behind the Homeworld games. Their new company, Blackbird Interactive is making something called HARDWARE: Shipbreakers and I am just a bit excited after watching the trailer.
Shootmania Storm is an epiphany. It’s like someone took the modern expectations of what a multiplayer FPS should be, turned it upside down and shook it until all the bells, whistles and nonsense clattered onto the floor. What was left was sparse, light and clean. No iron-sights, no customisable classes, no massive production values… what on earth was left? An epiphany. As I said.
A new free-to-play MMOFPS has entered the arena, this one is known as Heroes & Generals and has a World War Two setting. It promises to allow gamers to play in two distinct fashions, the Hero side of things is first-person combat featuring ground, armoured and air combat along with a strategic layer with the Gnerals. The Generals will apparently determine the strategic direction of the war and manage reinforcements and battlefield assets.
Upcoming free-to-play shooter based on CryEngine3, Warface has a new trailer which you can watch after the break, a video which fortunately doesn’t involve any dubstep. It shows of a nice bit o action, but from how they have done the trailer it doesn’t look too different from a Call of Duty or Battlefield. I don’t think the trailer does the game justice, when I gave it a quick whirl at the Eurogamer Expo last year I came away feeling quietly positive. Warface has recently entered closed beta, if we get access here at Reticule Towers we will be sure to bring word of how the game is shaping up.
Welcome to The Reticule’s definitive roundup of gaming releases throughout December 2012. All release dates stated are for the EU, across all currently available platforms. Keep this page bookmarked for easy access, as we will link all previews and reviews when we post them on the site.
To celebrate the Battlefield series’ 10th Anniversary and the 2 millionth Premium Member, DICE and EA are giving away the one that started it all, Battlefield 1942. The official Battlefield Twitter account confirmed this earlier this evening and if you head over to the Origin website you can see 1942 listed under the demo section as being free to play.
It is just the base game without the expansions Road to Rome or Secret Weapons of WWII and it doesn’t appear to have received any updates with this free release. We are stuck with a maximum resolution of 1280×960, but it is worth it to play this game which has had such an influence over online shooters.
In an interesting turn of events, Square-Enix have today announced that Hitman: Blood Money is now free to play in a web browser using their Core Online service which is currently in beta. The catch, there always is one, is that you have to watch adverts to get free game time. Your first 10 minutes is free, then you have to view an ad to get another 10 minutes of game-time. The game runs in HD and full screen is available, the image above is from a game I just started using Chrome.
After my first 10 minutes a message informed me that I would have to choose an ad to watch to get my next session, the choice didn’t appear and I was free to carry on playing. Bizarre, but to avoid the hassle I could unlock a level for $0.49 or buy the full game, ad free for $4.99. It is an interesting idea, and the game certainly played very smoothly, but I wonder how things would play out for a newer release and what image quality people would get for the latest titles from Square-Enix. Lara Croft: The Guardian of Light is coming soon to the service and Mini Ninjas is already on it. An interesting idea from the company, it is something I will be keeping an eye on.
Welcome to the series of articles that is to hopefully become a record of The Best Of Free Online Gaming*. We here at The Reticule know that not everyone has the spare cash to spend on every AAA or indie release, or to sign up to monthly payments for all the latest MMO’s. Trouble is, if you’re looking for some free gaming there are literally hundreds of games taking up the free-to-play structure nowadays and trawling through them all to…