Combat Arms....

I remember a while back I was asking people to download this game because it was fun, which it kinda was, at least until the hackers overwhelmed it. But even then, I didn't really mind the hackers much, and if anyone called me a hacker I'd just go along with it, putting on my normal satirical routine. As I played this game, I suddenly began to realize just how stupid and irritating the game actually was, at least when compared to much better games like Modern Warfare 2. Then again, it's free, so what did you expect? But that isn't what pissed me off about this game.

I've been thinking about a word to describe just how bad, in terms of the way the game is played as an MMO, just how bad the game actually is, and just how hardcore it considers itself. And I finally found a term that actually describes it quite well. This game is a fucking attention whore. It can't keep going unless people actually pay a lot of attention to it. And a lot of people might not get where I am coming from with this, and I'll explain it to you.

The game is your basic first-person shooter where you just run around in these different game-types and just go around killing people. The usual stuff you would see in FPS's. But what makes this game such an attention hog, that people apparently put most of their everyday lives into playing, is that in order to stay a formidable opponent in this game, you have to constantly buy your items. I would have no problem with this, only except the items are fucking expensive. In the game, their are these points you earn based on your performance called GP. And you use that GP to rent guns, hats, armor, grenades, and backpacks for a certain amount of time, like say a day. Like, my favorite weapon is the SCAR and that costs about 800GP at most. Now, here's the kicker. When you go into this game as a casual gamer, you'd like nothing more than to just wield a weapon that you personally prefer, so for starters, you play a match, getting killed left and right by either really skilled players or hackers, and by the end of the match, you probably have about a few kills and maybe twenty or more deaths. And you'll only gain about 456GP. Not nearly enough to buy the stuff you want. So you play another game. You suck in it, and you only get maybe 234 GP. Still not enough. You have to constantly play these games just so you could get the equipment you wanna play with and stay competitive in the playing style that you chose. By the time you finally collect the money to get the gun, you then realize that it only pays for using the gun for a total of ONE whole day. And this doesn't count for just game time, it counts for real time as well. So after working hard to obtain the GP to get a 24 hour gun, you lose it after a day. So then you work again to obtain the gun.

Already, you can probably see one of my major complaints with this game. WHY CAN'T YOU KEEP THE GUNS?! No FPS in the history of FPS's has ever pulled such an time consuming stunt as this game has. At least none I can recall. At least with Crossfire, it only counts for in game time, and you could actually purchase the gun permanently, it just only requires maintenance to keep it repaired. But this game has the fucking gall to make you waste your entire time trying to stay on top of your shooting capabilities just so you can purchase the stuff you want. Why don't they just go ahead and have you lose your GP after a full day while your at it. That's probably the only way they could've made this game more dickish. This is one of the stupidest systems I've ever heard of, and my complaints don't stop there.

They do in fact have a way to buy a permanent gun, but it'll cost you about 35 dollars. That's just fucking greedy. At least give me the option to obtain my gun with the GP I've collected, you stupid money-grubbing whores!

I don't know if I've said this before, but I don't have anything against companies making money. In fact, that's a good thing. They get to maintain their business and everyone keeps their job, they pay for the servers, they are able to feed their families, themselves, that kinda thing. I have nothing against that. What I do have a problem with is that they are trying to make money off of imaginary items that can only be used in that one game. If I had 35 bucks on my right now, I would never think to use it to buy in game guns. In fact, I would probably use it to buy a game that is way better than this one. And their are quite a few games like that. If you want, I'll even name off a few of the games you could buy for less than 35 bucks that offer way more than this game ever will. Hell, Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network, even Wii Shop, have items that cost way less and are worth your money more than just the single 3D metaphysical object you paid 35 bucks for. And it's not over.

Their is also an option to buy with REAL MONEY an elite moderator status so you can ban people from your games...
This game has the balls to take a simple feature that should be available to everyone, the fans of this game, and make people pay for it in actual cash....
I can't fucking believe this. This is just so stupid, I can't even begin to say just how dumb of an idea this actually is. And I just thought of another game you could play that doesn't take up your 35 bucks. Team Fortress 2. And unlike Combat Arms, it's not an attention wanting whore. In fact, it's way better in almost every manner. If you want something a bit more photo-realistic, then Modern Warfare, or the first Call of Duty. Or anything Infinity Ward has made. Hell, even Crossfire, which is another free FPS game, allows you to be able to kick people from your server, and/or ban them. In fact, I would recommend Crossfire over this game anyday. It may be full of hackers, but it's not as blatant. Not to mention that Crossfire has way better hacking protection than Combat Arms does.

Not to mention the sheer number of bugs in the maps and the gameplay itself that still need working out.

Btw, speaking of the hacker issues, coming from a guy who's played this game for about a year only to just play it now, the situation on hackers hasn't gotten any better at all. Nexon has no fucking idea what it's doing anymore. They never had an idea what the fuck was wrong. This is why Maple Story is so full of hackers and people that take advantage of all these loopholes in Nexon's games. Years upon years of working with Maple Story, and yet they can't figure out how to block the hackers out. Here's an interesting question: why do programmers waste their time making these hacks for these Nexon games, when they could be doing something else with their programming skills, like making a game that actually does the genre way better than any of Nexon's games. SubaGames has the right idea. They are at least trying to give people a better gaming experience, regardless of how low on money they are. This game is not going to change for the better. You might as well stop using these hacks and actually start doing something that will earn you more cash. It's not that hard either. I imagine it's only a game development degree away, and I'm pretty sure their are SOME game companies that are hiring programmers. Hell, you could even get a decent pay from them. I mean, using your programming skills to help other game developer companies be better, that just sounds stupid. But no, they would rather spend all their time and attention towards a self-absorbent greedy piece of bigot crap that doesn't even deserve their time. The hackers are way better than this! They are not this low! They should not be wasting their time with such an insignificant metaphysical attention-wanting piece of programming. And you people are way better than this too. Support the games that really deserve it, the companies that really do try to get rid of the hackers, or the ones that really do try to give you something entertaining and balanced for your buck. But don't waste your money on this game.

I hope I got my point across. I don't want to come off as sounding like some sort of jackass, too late, but the people who play this, and the hackers that hack the hell out of Nexon's games deserve way more than the guys that program it are giving them credit for. I'm actually more surprised by the fact that Nexon is unable to get in contact with any of them and asks them for advice on how to stop the hacking from getting through. I probably come off as sort of a troll when trying to portray how much of an attention grabbing whore it is. It's certainly not that bad in terms of gameplay. It does seem like the hitbox detection works, and that the gameplay is okay, but in terms of micromanaging, it's just a wreck. This probably seems more like a rant on little nitpicks, and even then, the ramblings probably don't make much sense. And it is. But in the end, I don't really expect anyone to stop playing because of what I say. That's fine. I really don't care about people hacking in the game either, even if I can't get a kill off before the game ends. But let's not pretend this game isn't an attention wanting program. You can probably just see for yourself by looking at how long you've played, just what rank you are at, and how much GP and stuff you've actually acquired. You are clearly addicted to it's charm. You really enjoy the fact that you are paying money and devoting hours upon hours to keeping your character in tip top shape. But like I've said, if you like it, nothing I can do, and more power to you. But don't put comments at the bottom telling me I should give this game another chance. But I do fully expect comments that tell me I've missed a few things about the game that I didn't cover, and that's fine too.

I better get back to work. I've got a few maps that need working on. I hope I didn't ramble on for too long. Or send out a wall 'o' text your way. Probably need help with sentence structuring. Slowly working on that.