Teens in Tech Games

When a friend showed me the free-to-play, online warfare first-person shooter Combat Arms for the first time last year, I was blown away. I had been introduced to an amazing world of action and warfare that I would soon become a part of. It was developed by Doobic Studios and published by Nexon, both respectable game companies, and this time they have outdone themselves. Personally, as a complete addict of this game, I can say that it is quite possibly the best free online FPS game available. With 16 high-quality war zones, 8 enticing mission types, fully customizable avatars, well over 100 weapons and even a real-world-money “Black Market”, this game will blow practically anyone away. They regularly patch the game and keep adding more and more amazing content, so you never get bored with what they offer.

It’s hard to know where to start, but let’s begin with quality. This game is free-to-download, and yet it still has first-rate quality, from the intricate and well-thought-out maps to the realistic and high-texture weapons you use. The sounds of weapons, footsteps, explosions, bullet impacts, and hit-confirmations are all top-quality and carefully chosen. I was impressed with the wide range and variety of sounds such as gunshots and reloading noises, because all of them are different. Overall, the visual and audible quality of the game is astounding, considering that it’s a free-to-play game. Next we should look at weapons: there are about 74 standard free ones, not mentioning all the rare and real-money ones. They are fully customizable, with lots of attachments. Attachments and weapons are unlocked as a player gains experience and moves up in the ranks. There are a LOT of ranks, and no one has reached the top one yet! Players can equip themselves with any weapons they want, as long as they have the rank requirements for them. A great thing about Combat Arms that sets it apart from other games is that no weapon is perfect or “cheap.” All weapons have advantages and downsides, making them all equal to each other in the long run. Weapons may excel in one area, such as power, but lack in another, such as recoil. Even the highest ranked weapons in the game have their limitations, so it is impossible to buy a weapon that will automatically own. Overall the weapons in CA make it a great playing experience. Not only does the Shop sell weapons and mods, but it also has a huge variety of character customization options. You can buy things like helmets, vests, hats, camo, etc. with in-game money (you make the money from playing the game) that make your stats better, like more protection or stamina, and also make your character stand out. The huge variety of items is great, and I always enjoy customizing my character with all the gear I need to play my best. You may be wondering: how does this company make any money? Players not only have the option of purchasing free gear in the Shop, but can also use real-world money in the “Black Market,” an online store full of improved and special edition weapons and gear. Just go out and buy a Nexon Gift Card, and buy pretty much any item you want!

There are a few serious backdrops to this game. It’s obviously not as good quality as a store-bought game, and there is the chance that it could infect your computer (free games are always crawling with viruses). Another problem is the huge amount of hackers in the game. While Nexon is doing everything it can do stop it, hackers just keep popping up, and it ruins the game for everyone. So don’t hack! Plus, the Black Market can be a real money-waster, especially since all the items are basically replicas of free gear already in the game.

In short, Combat Arms is one of the top free online shooters out there, and is my personal favorite game of all time. Any player can design their own game room from top to bottom, including what weapons are allowed, what the mission type is, what the map is, and who is invited. With a huge variety of weapons and gear available, everyone can make their avatar function exactly the way they want it to. Every mission type you can imagine is there, including Elimination, Capture the Flag, Search and Destroy, One Man Army, a campaign-mode, and even a zombie-mode! The game is always being patched, and by next month it will probably have 10% more content than when you read this last. If you want a free-to-play, modern warfare first-person shooter with more customization than any of its rivals, choose Combat Arms. It’s unbelievable.

I got the PC game Spore about a year ago, just to see if what I’d heard about it was true. I have come to the conclusion that it is easily the most versatile and adaptable game ever created, bar none. From the beginning when you start out as a single-cell organism to the peak of your intelligence as a galactic traveler, the game can be modified in infinite ways to match your exact preferences. With exceptional graphics and tons of memory space, this is a game you shouldn’t pass up. It is the literally the creation of human-controlled intelligent design, and making it any more awesome would be gambling with divine intervention. Developed by Maxis, published by Electronic Arts. A platform has been created that allows you to edit your character and its environment any way you like. You start out as a single-cell organism that has crash-landed into a new planet, and you immediately start to eat food, breed, and most importantly, evolve. But this is no Pokemon-style evolution; this is you literally tweaking every last detail of the organism. Eventually you leave the ocean and become a “Creature,” which in turn leads to the “Tribe,” “Civilization,” and “Space” stages. But you are by no way finished at that point, which is why some people are still playing their original game since its arrival in September 2008.

This game has so many positive aspects it’s hard to put them all down, but let’s begin with the adaptability. That alone is why everyone should own this game. If we take a look at one of the stages, “Creature” for example, the player has a literally infinite number of combinations for how to make their character look, act, and survive. From the color of their skin to the legs, arms, eyes, mouths, claws, feet, noses, etc. available, the choices are sometimes harder than the editing process! But it doesn’t stop there. Let’s say we want put a pair of arms on our creature. We select the arms, place them on the body, and then change them to look however we want them to, including thickness, length, and size. If we skip ahead a little, vehicles and towers can also be created for civilizations. After you design your character, they walk, sound, and act the way you designed them to, so you always complete control. The game is played from a 3rd person view, and in the Space Stage you can zoom out enough to view you entire galaxy! The game is extremely complicated, but I love how user-friendly it is; a 5-year old could play it just as well as my grandparents. A player can decide if they want to move more towards certain types of gaming, like military, economic, peacekeeping, etc. Basically what you do is lead a character, a tribe, or an entire civilization through the evolutionary process. Deciding if your game technique should be aggressive, peaceful, or in-between, a player can enjoy any kind of game they want. For so much content, the quality is pretty good, and you have to remember that this game has more options in it than anything before it. It’s also very cheap, costing as little as $30. It is definitely one of the best games I’ve ever played.

Unfortunately, this game does have its downsides. I did mention slight quality inferiorities, compared to other more expensive games, but I believe that this is counterweighted by the game’s unbelievable customization abilities. At least on my old, crappy computer, the game definitely tended to lag, and occasionally the game would completely crash on me, erasing my unsaved progress. But I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem with a better computer. Also, it can be kind of frustrating when everything you do impacts your game’s future. For example, if your tribe was hostile and raided other tribes, millions of years into the future some galactic empires might not ally with you, because your civilization has that aggressive trait in it now. Or let’s say you blow up an enemy planet with an enormous bomb, just for fun; I found out later that things like that break the “Galactic Code,” so essentially I couldn’t ally with the biggest/toughest empire in the galaxy and “win.” The long-term aspect of the game ticked me off a little bit, cuz it takes a long time to get places with the program setup. But these aren’t huge problems for the game, especially when you weigh in the pros as well.

In short, Spore is a fully customizable, easily enjoyable game that is the first in its class to be both revolutionary and evolutionary. If you’ve ever wanted to make an avatar/spaceship/creature exactly the way you wanted it, go right ahead. The possibilities are mind-boggling, and when you combine them with a great story about the marvels of the universe, it can’t be beat. Spore really made me think about the endless grandeur of the cosmos, and how lucky we all are to be in it. Spore is the only game that ever really opened my eyes about the world we live in, the vastness of the universe, and how big of an impact we can have on it. Create what you want, when you want, how you want. Perfect.