Eternal Lands

Site: http://www.eternal-lands.com/

Eternal Lands is a free MMORPG game under development. It is not so well-known mainly because it is not developed by some large and multinational game development company but a small team.

I really enjoy this type of games – they are not so perfectly working but you can touch part of the game development process. You can visit the developers page and the forum to learn more.

In EL characters are not bond to a profession, they can learn any skill they like and change it anytime. Players can choose between six playable races: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, orchans and draegoni. I didn’t find much visual difference between the races though.

Knight Online

Site: http://knightonlineworld.gamersfirst.com/index.php

Knight Online is a popular MMORPG developed by MGame Corporation. The game is free to play and download, but with some premium services. The site here is the US official, there are also two other servers – the Korean and the Japanese.
Knight Online is set in a fantasy world of magic, knights and battles. Right at the beginning you are thrown in the conflict between two enemy nations and you must choose a side!

The game has four starting classes – Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Priest. The first job change is at level 10.

Gameplay
At the beginning every new player starts with a mission to defeat one big worm and save his future virtual friend – Seed (or Max). Your virtual friend will help you with information and tips about the game world.
Leveling up is similar to most other games – players obtain experience through killing mobs and doing quests, obtain stats points per each level and develop their character with great deal of individuality.
If you want to level up faster in Knight Online it is better to start some quests and fight mobs while doing the quests. Also you can improve your weapons and armor through crafting.
The in-game currency is called Noahs. Players can obtain Noahs through killing monsters, doing quests, trading and so on.

PvP
The game offers often wars, castle sieges and other events. Players can duel other players from their nation and fight for National Points and Ladder Points players from the enemy nation.

Quests
The game has many quests – very similar to many other MMORPGs – kill n mobs or collect m items.

Downloading the game.
I personally don’t like games without own client hosting. They redirect you to some big file sharing sites with a lot of ads and spam/scam content. On the official site you see that your download must be something like 900mb and on the file hosting servers you see 400mb exe. And all of them store an exe with different size. All file hosting servers listed in the official game site. So which is the correct one? I don’t know.
This is not very pleasant approach for a serious company and game. I am not sure I can trust such game. Maybe I haven’t seen the exe on the official site? I don’t like this part ruining otherwise marvelous impression.

Overall impression
Knight Online is a very good game with cool PVP system and fascinating gameplay. Very fast it became one of my favorite games.

This post in my blog - Game news, reviews, cheats, fun - http://godsector.blogspot.com/2009/10/knight-online.html

Star Trek Online (STO)

Are you a Star Trek geek? Are you a MMORPG fan? Both?

Star Trek Online Closed Beta is available for new registrations. You can try and be accepted on the official site - http://www.startrekonline.com/.

In STO you can experience 25 century universe. You can face the vast space as a Federation Captain or a Klingon Warlord. According to the official site the player will have the opportunity to customize his own space ship to better represent his personality. Star Trek Online will feature space and ground combat.

Trailer:


Screenshots:

"Star Trek Online game content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of Cryptic Studios, Inc. and used with permission. All rights reserved. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. © 2008 Paramount Pictures Corp. All rights reserved."

Metin2

Site: http://www.metin-2.com/
Wiki: http://wiki.metin-2.com/index.php/Main_Page

Metin2 is a MMORPG in an oriental style. It is a free to play and download game with Asian sceneries, cool warriors, powerful magicians and frightening martial artists.

Graphics and impression
The game features beautiful scenery graphics and the characters and mobs animations are relatively good. (There are some MMORPG with very poor animation of walking and fighting). The characters are not very customizable – you can’t choose anything but class and gender. The fighting animations are pretty cool – your character moves and fights making impression of a dance.

Gameplay
The game has a lot of missions. You can start doing quests right from the beginning. At level 5 you can choose your specialization for skills and weapons.

Mobs fight in groups, at high levels you will encounter aggressive mobs that attack you on sight. All classes can do area of effect (AoE) damage and the low levels are relatively easy. Leveling up is fast and fun. The quests give a lot of money, experience and bonuses so they worth their time.

PVP
You can join or create a guild and participate in Guild Fights. Any guild can take possession of one of the strongholds, hire and train NPCs to guard it.
Standard or non-standard PVP is available from level 15. You can ask people for Duel, fight players from another empire or select the "free" option from the PVP menu. The free option allows you to attack and to be attacked by any character in the game.

Classes

• Warrior – melee character with heavy armor and a lot of strength. At level 5 they can specialize for better attack and speed or better deffence.
• Ninja – high dexterity characters with light armor. Ninjas can specialize with bows or daggers. I am not sure why this class is called ninja not thief (it is like any other thief character in most of the MMORPGs.)
• Sura – they combines long range magic with close range sword fight. At level 5 they can choose to specialize their long range spells or develop their close range fighting abilities.
• Shaman – the magic users. A shaman can choose to be a support character with healing and buff spells or damage dealer with attack spells.

For more detailed view on the game classes read the Metin2 Wiki.

Empires
In Metin2 the player meets a conflict between tree empires: Chunjo Empire, Shinsoo Empire and Jinno Empire. They fight for the domination over the continent, honor, glory and in-game bonuses.



Overall Impression
Metin2 is awesome MMORPG. Yes, there is some grinding but the game has a lot of quest and you can minimize it a lot.

Mini Ninjas

Have you dreamed to be a ninja? Do you want to experience adventure like never before? Do you like to watch animes like Naruto?

Site: http://www.minininjas.com/us
Mini Ninjas is a fun, action-adventure game developed by IO Interactive. In the role of Hiro or the other ninjas you will receive the mission to stop the Evil Samurai Warlord. Can you save the world from evil?

The game offers free movements through the world for better exploration and battles.

No killing. Mini Ninjas offers fun and battles without actual cruelty. Your enemies are transformed with evil magic innocent animals. Your role is to lift the curse from them and save them. So Mini Ninjas is game appropriate for kids - it is rated 10+ with Crude Humor and Cartoon Violence.

Characters:
Hiro – the youngest of all Mini Ninjas. He can use Kuji Magic to posses animals and cast fireballs. His main weapon in battle is the sword.

Futo - the biggest Mini Ninja with the giant hammer. Futo is Hiro’s best friend.

Suzume - she is the most fragile and swift of all the ninjas. Suzume uses her flute in battle. She has a special melody that makes her enemies dance in the middle of combat.

Suzume gameplay

Tora – he uses a pair of self-made tiger claws in battle.

Kunoichi – she is the youngest girl from the Mini Ninjas. She uses spear (Naginata).

Shun - he uses a bow as his main weapon.

Florensia – first impression

Site: http://en.florensia-online.com/

Florensia is a fantasy, 3D, sea and land MMOG, free to play and download.

Explorer

The world of Florensia is consisted of several islands and a huge ocean. You can fight land battles and grow your character on the land or go and fight sea battles, construct your ship and hire your crew. Land gameplay is your average MMORPG gameplay - the character attacks mobs, gets experience, learn skill and so on.
Leveling up is available for sea and land battles separately. Your land level won’t affect your sea level.

Noble fighting.

At the beginning the game meets you with long tutorial screens but believe me you’ll need to know what you are doing. The land battles are somewhat alike many other MMORPGs but the sea battle is a way different. You need to know how to assemble a ship. You also need to know how to repair it and how to hire a crew. I recommend you to do all beginning quests and carefully read the tutorial.

To assemble a ship you need to talk to dockyard owner NPC.

Sea battles at the beginning feel a little strange. It is not your usual type of game. Sea navigation is somewhat hard but it is a great adventure. I don’t like the Torpedo ship anyway.

Torpedo Ship for apprentices.

You can use five different ship types - Armored Ship, Big Gun Ship, Assault Ship, Torpedo Ship or Maintenance Ship.

Florensia has four starting classes – Explorer, Mercenary, Noble and Saint. At level 40 you can start a class change quest.

Explorer – Uses mainly gun-type weapons. He can also use sword. Explorers have limited defense powers and can’t use heavy armors. At level 40 can become Snipers or Excavators.
Mercenary – mercenaries use swords (of course). They have high strength, high constitution and high defense powers. Mercenaries are weak against magical attack. At level 40 they can become Gladiators or Guardian Swordsmans.
Noble - nobles are the magic users in Florensia. They have AoE (area of effect) damage spells and weak defense. At level 40 they can become Magic Knights or Magicians.
Saint – The Saint is the game healer. At level 40 he or she can become Priest or Shaman.

You can make a choice – to be a pirate or to join the Royal army but I haven’t tried this yet.

She repairs your ship.

Mini Ninjas Video

Very funny.

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game is an upcoming video game by Ubisoft. The game is an adaptation of James Cameron's film Avatar. Less is known about the game. I haven't met even what genre it would be. On the other hand Ubisoft announced that they are using the same 3D technology as the film. Some of the characters in the game would be voiced by the respective actors from the film. The game will be released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC(Windows) and PlayStation Portable.

The film: James Cameron's Avatar is an upcoming 3D fiction film.It's going to be released on 18 December this year.

Further reading:
http://avatargame.us.ubi.com/
Avatar, the film

ATI Eyefinity

Expect the new monster from AMD - ATI Eyefinity.
Have you dreamed for unbelievable experience playing the next generation MMORPG? Newer, better, bigger virtual worlds and virtual reality.

Yesterday, AMD announced cool, new technology ATI Eyefinity. Powered by one DirectX 11 graphics card, ATI Eyfinity supports up to six ultra high definition displays for better gaming experience.

For more information:
http://www.amd.com
ATI Eyefinity’s Panoramic Future

Upcoming: Mortal Online

Mortal Online teaser