This is my second year talking to the folks at NC Soft and you have to hand it to them they are certainly doing something different with the MMORPG market.
While they do have a few standard fantasy MMORPG titles they are also branching out in some new directions.
The biggest indication of that is their new PlayNC initiative where they are going to be offering up select new games in kind of a newer interpretation of the old shareware model (or crack cocaine model if you’re into that kind of thing).
The theory is that you hook people with a free sample and then they pay to unlock the full version or features in the new version.
It’s a nice system but you have to have good games for it to work and that’s where the titles come in.
NC Soft showed off four of these titles:
- Dungeon Runners: A kind of hack and slash Diablo style game that features procedurally generated dungeons for your to explore and pillage.
- Exteel: A fast paced mech combat game that allows you to customize your giant robot and duke it out in arenas with other combatants.
- Soccer Fury: Combat soccer, not with weapons Last Boy Scout style but rather with your fists and feet. Nothing like kicking someone in the head to get the ball away from them
- Smash Star: A tennis game where what you wear impacts how you play. Very anime look and feel to the game. I’m not sure that we’ll ever see this game in the US but it looked solid.
Besides Play NC, NC Soft also has several new MMO’s coming out this year. Saying Tabula Rasa has had some development issues is like saying that Tommy Lee has been in a few interesting relationships. The game has been in development for a while but it looks to have finally come together. The game has you defending Earth in the near future from an alien invasion. What makes the game a bit different is how you level your characters. The game gives you a taste of all the classes through the first ten levels of the game before forcing you to branch into one of the two major categories: Solder or Specialist. The cool part is that before you make the decision you can clone your character and explore the path you didn’t take later on in the game without having to go back and play through the first ten levels of the game. You’ll be able to make more clones as you progress through the game which means that you’ll be able to explore a lot more of the games class system without having to go back and start from scratch.
Aion:The Tower of Eternity is NC Soft’s newest MMO. The game is powered by the Crytec game engine bringing a new level of graphical acuity to the MMO market. You play as either an angel or a demon as you battle for control of the Tower of Eternity. The game has a very soft, ethereal feel and should offer a little something different from your standard fantasy MMO game.
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