The PC multiplayer beta for Section 8 the new first-person shooter from TimeGate Studios began for Australians and New Zealanders on the weekend and thankfully, I was lucky enough to score a beta key. I hadn’t done any homework on this title and the only thing I knew about it was that it’s a shooter (which immediately sparked my interest).

I decided to jump straight in (without reading the forums or the online manual) and found that the basic control mechanics used in most online shooters these days seemed to work fine for Section 8. The W, A, S, D keys are used for movement (strafing etc) and left mouse button for shooting. But there are quite a lot of different control keys required for alot of the other basic gameplay mechanics in Section 8 so I’ve got a few hours of gaming ahead of me to learn about all of the weapons and their functionality.

From a gameplay perspective, it reminds me of Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. You play as a soldier that is shielded in special protective armour capable of absorbing damage (just like Halo 3). You get to choose from several different classes (such as Assault, Infiltrator) much like Call of Duty with specific weapon sets (which you can edit and change before each respawn). The sprint boost is unreal! Finally, a game where you can dash around the map at super speed that lasts longer than 4 seconds!

Weapons are also really pretty kickass – grenade (like rocket) launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles etc. There are various other weapons too which I have yet to use. I’ve spent most of my time playing Assault class but when I get more time, I’ll blog about the other classes. Section 8 also features vehicles (much like mechs).

There’s no campaign mode and you can’t upgrade when you rank up as yet. From the looks of things, ranking up (by team assists, kills etc) will be fully featured in the release and you’ll be able to upgrade everything from weapons to armour. Connecting to US servers was easy but laggy. My ping to Aussie servers was looking good on 37. It’s nice having local servers to connect to for online multiplayer.

So far, my first impressions of the beta for Section 8 is ranking at about a 4/5. I’ll blog more once I’ve had more time with the game online but so far, it’s looking pretty solid.

Fileplanet have released beta keys for Section 8 via their website for subscribers only. The closed beta keys were released some time ago but the beta is now open if you are a fileplanet subscriber.

Dates for the beta vary depending on your location. If you want a key and don’t yet have one (and you’re a subscriber) get in now because the keys always disappear pretty fast!

Section 8 is also an FPS MMO so if you’re into first person shooters, this is the game for you!

Fileplanet’s website is here.

Yesterday I blogged about not having access to the Huxley Dystopia beta via Fileplanet. Today I received an email in my inbox stating that keys for the ‘Worldwide’ beta of Champions Online were available.

This confuses me. So how is it decided what games are made available ‘worldwide’ and what games are not? Obviously, Huxley Dystopia is for US and Canadian subscribers only but Champions Online is available for anyone with a subscription…

So I’ve got my beta key and I am now downloading the pre-load file. Champions Online looks like a whole lot of fun but I really wanted to try Huxley Dystopia because it’s a first person shooter and that’s one of my fav genre’s.

As always, I’ll be updating this blog with details of the beta so watch this space!

I’ve been a member of Fileplanet for a couple of years now, paying the subscription fee for the founders club annually. My issue is that my money doesn’t seem to get me the same beta game opportunities that people in the US and Canada receive.

But why not? I pay the same amount (in NZ dollars) to get access to the services they offer but when it comes to beta testing, somehow living in New Zealand is a curse. Thankfully, I can get access to beta keys through my work but that isn’t always guaranteed which is why I signed up to Fileplanet in the first place…

I understand why some beta keys are limited and it’s a ‘first come, first served’ basis which is fine. But why advertise that ‘All Users’ can gain access to the beta of a game when that’s clearly not the case.

So now I have to wonder what the advantages are for people like me living in countries outside of the US and Canada when we don’t get access to the same things yet pay the same amount of money every year.

And to think, I was really hyped about playing this game…

I blogged earlier about the new MMORPG Aion currently in beta and releasing in September in New Zealand. I was facing a dilemma at the time as to whether or not to continue playing Warhammer Online or to close my account and focus on Aion and get ready for the September release.

After spending considerable time playing the Aion beta a few weekends ago, I’ve made some major decisions about what I will be doing with my PC gaming time. I’ll explain these one by one so it’s clear as to why I’ve decided to make this change.

Like any other gamer, I play games to enjoy them and to get the best possible gaming experience I can. When I am paying for a game monthly (as opposed to paying for Xbox Live which I also do, once a year), I expect alot from the gaming experience I pay for. Quite frankly, I didn’t feel I was getting the best possible gaming experience I could for my money and my time any longer. This heavily influenced my decision to close my Warhammer Online account.

In WAR I had exhausted almost every area of content in the game apart from finishing off every public quest and finding every tome unlock. I decided to play Warhammer Online for the sheer enjoyment of online player versus player combat. That was the one thing that attracted me to the game and was the heart and soul of the experience. When this began to falter, so did my enjoyment.

I was the guild leader of my own guild for the better part of a year and when I retired it, I joined the top guild on my server (DiE which was also the fourth guild worldwide to reach guild rank 40) and for a time, felt that being with DiE would sustain my interest in the game. DiE was an RvR (PvP) based guild and focused on aspects of the game I enjoyed. But even this did not prevent the inevitable decline in online enjoyment for me.

The server instability was extremely frustrating but paled in comparison to the inconsistencies I could see every day between Order classes and their equivalents on the Destruction side. Everything came down to this. Every encounter I had was almost always the same – frustrating. Server instability on the oceanic servers was also very annoying. When you’re connecting to a US server and you’re not getting lag of any sort then swap back to the oceanic server only to lag out every time, it becomes more than an issue. It was supposed to be more stable for me to connect to an oceanic server and it just wasn’t.

Aion seemed to be alot more stable when I played (during peak times with no lag) but again, I cannot ascertain how this will be once the game is released and more people will populate the servers in September. I have also been unable to get to level 25 in Aion and therefore cannot comment on the PvP aspect of the game. But the tradeskill and questing systems in Aion are alot more comprehensive and alot easier to navigate than their counterparts in Warhammer Online.

And then there’s the flying in Aion which adds a totally new dimension to the gaming experience and opens up a completely different level of enjoyment, especially from a PvP aspect. Aion does look beautiful but Warhammer looked very nice as well. Visually, they are both very different games and I don’t really play a game for aesthetics. Ultimately, it’s gameplay that is important to me as a gamer.

I will be finishing off the beta testing this weekend for Aion and will focus on PvP gameplay to complete my comparisons but so far, Aion is looking very much like the next big MMORPG to play for MMO gamers. I’ll be reviewing Aion in early September for Gamefreaks magazine just before the game releases in New Zealand.

I blogged about Fallen Earth some time ago and since then I’ve had some quality time with the beta. I’ve discovered that it’s going to be a relatively fun game to play if they can sort out the bugs and server stability.

The nearest comparison I can make to any game is probably to that of Fallout – post apocalyptic environment and storyline where you are a clone that is on a mission to save yourself from dying. Well, that’s the introduction, the game plays like any other MMO where you’re given sub-missions (or quests) to level up and gain ability points (which you can then add to various abilities or tradeskills).

In Fallen Earth you’re a clone,  so technically you can’t really ‘die’ – you’re basically resurrected (just like the cylons), which is pretty cool (but is essentially the same as any other MMO where you are ‘rezzed’ by a healer or some such). So no real surprises there. The one very cool thing about Fallen Earth has to be the use of mutations.

During beta I was only given access to the ‘Alpha’ stage of mutation. I am guessing the higher you progress in the game, the more powerful your mutations become (the dialogue between NPCs hints towards some characters being able to turn themselves into human flame throwers!). The gear you acquire also points to psionics being accessible which I am very keen to see in action. Currently, my main character is running around in pretty nifty looking 3-d glasses (just like the ones you get at the movies) which apparently help against psionic attacks.

Questing in the game is straight forward and will be common place if you’re an MMO player. The quest lines are very easy to follow (chain quests in other games are impossible to navigate) but are harder than your average MMO at lower levels. And when I say hard, I mean don’t expect to be able to play much of Fallen Earth solo. If you want to do it that way, you can but it will probably take you a while to level up if you don’t interact with other players. Dying is annoying and although the penalties for dying weren’t obvious to me in the beta, it’s annoying enough having to rely on others just to kill one person at level two!

In some ways I see this as a good thing (assuming this level of difficulty continues into the finished game). The last thing you want is everyone leveling up to level 40 in a day. But you also want to give players a bit of hope that they won’t always need to be part of a group to complete tasks and quests. Solo game play can be very rewarding (think of all the loot you get to keep!) so the option to choose how you play needs to be retained.

I’ll blog more about character classes, mutations and tradeskills in my next post but so far, the game is looking very promising.

“The old world is dead… welcome to the new one – welcome to the Apocalypse”

That’s right, it’s Fallen Earth stress testing time for me… well, it actually begins officially on the 23rd of June and I am blogging about this in anticipation of the event. I’ve beta tested a few games in my time (and previewed a few more before release) and I’m dead keen to see how Fallen Earth stacks up in terms of MMORPGs. I feel there is a consistent lack of good MMORPGs on the market today, but there are some pretty good ones on the horizon (along with Star Wars: Old Republic, Fallen Earth seems to fit into this category).

I’m looking for a break from Warhammer: Online and I think Fallen Earth with its post-apocalyptic setting may just be the trick.  I’ll be sure to let you know what I think of the game as I get some quality time with it.

Watch this space for updates!

For those of you who don’t know what Quake Live is it’s basically the video game Quake 3 which has been completely redeveloped to be playable via your browser. I’m actually beta-testing it at the moment and wow, it’s really really cool! I am a huge Quake franchise fanatic… loved everything about the games when I used to play them so having a new reason to love the game all over again is beyond words

I was a little dubious about playing the game via the browser but I had a little twirl of the game about ten minutes ago and it’s almost seamless – you don’t experience any lag or any latency, it really is a very different experience to running the game via your hard drive or off the disk.

It also looks really goood via my rather primeval CRT monitor so I can imagine it would look even better on a flat screen monitor on the best resolution (yes, don’t worry people, I do intend on upgrading to a flat screen for my gaming PC very soon).

There were at least 600+ gamers playing online which seems like a rather solid number for beta testing. I wonder how id intends to market the game… hmm.