Nexon America Presents: Combat Arms and more

First day of the convention, I had the opportunity to tour the Nexon America booth at PAX.

The booth contained lines of computers for each game they were demonstrating, including Combat Arms, Combat Arms: Quarantine, Dungeon Fighter and Dragon's Nest.

All of the games are Free2Play games where you can purchase items to enhance game play, or for combat arms, to specialize the look of your armor and weapons. Of the three shown, the Combat Arms games are the only ones that are currently live.  Dungeon Fighter is in closed beta and they were handing out cards with beta keys to get in and play closed beta. Dragon's Nest is in the early alpha stages, but is playable.

Combat Arms is a first-person-shooter, F2P game. The game has several modes, maps and the newest game of Combat Arms, called Quarantine, is a game where 10 people play on a map and 30 seconds or so after the round starts, 2 people are chosen, at random, to be zombies. The goal of the game is to survive for the three minute round and not be turned into a zombie. Zombies can be killed, but do respawn and are incredibly hard to kill. Essentially, you need to find a highly defensible spot that others are not likely to find to win. The fast paced games last for three minutes and allow for many games to be played over a short period of time.

While I have played many FPS in the past, I didn't really enjoy them.  I was attracted to the fast paced zombie game as well as the other games.  Like most FPSes, it's frag or be fragged.   And found the speed at which the games were played to be immensely fun.  This game has definitely piqued my interest in FPSes again and I will definitely be playing Combat Arms in the coming weeks.  Considering there were several game types, including capture the flag, and other objectives, the game and its ample servers, will provide variety for anyone who enjoys military based games.

Dungeon Fighter Online's slogan “Take the arcade fight online“ is accurate when you start playing it. The game reminds me of the old school arcade games where you popped in your quarter and played until you die. Luckily, you don't have to pop quarters in to start to play, nor do you have to put quarters in to keep playing this game. Dungeon Fighter pits you against various monsters as you side scroll your way through zones and levels. In addition to PVE, you can also pit your skills in the Player-Versus-Player Arena and go head-to-head against fellow Dungeon Fighters.

There are five preset classes to play from which can be specialized to be different from other players to an extent.  However, as far as I could tell, how the character looks or is dressed is unable to be controlled by the player.

Early access beta begins Sept. 15 for Dungeon Fighter Online. More information on this game can be found at http://dungeonfighter.nexon.net

Personally, I had a blast playing the game the 30-minutes or so I had and while the graphics might hold some back, it is a different approach to MMO graphics.  It definitely took me back to the arcade game days and I look forward to seeing it in action as an MMO.

Dragon's Nest is, in some ways, very similar to Dungeon Fighter. Both are fantasy, action genre games. Both have predefined character classes to choose from and you can, in theory, survive by random button mashing. At that point the similarities stop. Dragon's Nest has different graphics and looks nothing like Dungeon Fighter's arcade style graphics. Dragon's Nest graphics are richer and are 3D, not 2D, and have better special effects than the arcade styling of Dungeon Fighter. It also has portals, similar to those you would see if you have played Guild Wars, that take you outside of cities and into areas you can explore.

Dragon's Nest is a game developed by Eyedentity Games, a Korean developer compromised of former members of NCsoft, Webzen, Gravity, and Phantagram, the developers behind some of the biggest MMO titles in the world. Nexon received the rights to produce the game for North America, as they have for several other games.

Dragon's Nest movement system was very smooth and reminiscent of other MMOs on the market.  The fighting was intense and fast paced.  The nicest part of the game, while in alpha here in North America, is that you were able to choose where to resurrect.  There was no need to go all the way to town, resurrect and come back.  It made for a refreshing change of pace.

Much like Dungeon Fighter, the characters all seem to be predefined by looks according to class and there doesn't seem to be a way to customize them.

Nexon presented three very different games that appeal to younger generations of gamers as well as older generations of gamers and those that enjoy FPS-games alike. I look forward to the two new games they announced going live and playing them in the future.

by Kayhynn