Saturday, March 20, 2010

BattlePunks review –2-

5

And Gravity Bear doesn’t stop there. Unlike it’s spiritual predecessor MyBrute; BattlePunks has a fully featured character editor. Here you can customize and give your character its distinct look and feel. From the hair, skin, etc, its all about making your character yours. And if you’re not content with that, you can always head over the Shop, to buy brand new clothing/accessories/gears using your hard earned gold from fighting. This gives players even more reason to play the game, as it encourages you to get more gold to personalize your character, rather than just getting new skills/items/weapons. It simply works & I’m hooked.

2 

Getting into fights are relatively easy, and the Battle screen gives you 3 challengers to pick, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The game also shows what your opponent could be bringing to the fight, so you can prepare ahead what kind of setup you’ll bring before stepping into the ring. This gives a layer of strategy to an otherwise mind-numbing fighting game.

And speaking of fighting, the game is simply amazing once the battle starts. Alot of dynamic going on, and it is pretty smooth compared to MyBrute. Here it is in action:

Other features include being able to duel with friends, as well as the freedom to go to one locate to another (given you meet the level requirements & got the appropriate map) so you can get new items, meet new challengers, and get a brand new area to fight in.

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This also gives players more things to look forward to, and keeps the game feeling fresh, as there’s always a new location to go to, making it feel RPG-ish in a way.

The only thing that I can say is a problem with BattlePunks, is the long initial load times, as it will install and download its custom game engine into your PC. It may take atleast 10 – 15 minutes (on very slow internet connections) but once that’s done, loading the game should be as quick and painless as any Facebook game.

CONCLUSION

Gravity Bear’s first foray into Facebook gaming marked the dawn of a new era. Just when every developer out there is content to be just another clone of another Facebook game, Gravity Bear ups the ante by delivering console-quality gaming to Facebook. Some may argue, that its just a MyBrute clone, but once you get into it, you will see that the comparison is only skin-deep. With myriad of options, customizations, and dynamic action in 3D, you’d even forget the MyBrute comparison. The initial load time may turn off others as it may take awhile, but for me that initial wait is well worth the admission price for such a great and addicting Facebook app.

battlepunks rating - 3

 

BattlePunks review –1-

game header

Most people know majority of Facebook games usually are either text-based or java-based games. More often than not, graphics take a step-back to the actual game itself. However, by the start of 2010, that trend started to change with the rise of 2D flash-based games coming on Facebook. A promise of a more richer, visually enticing, gaming experience on Facebook is on the horizon. And just when I thought that’s the best Facebook games can do, a developer named Gravity Bear stepped forward to raise the bar even higher.

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Enter BattlePunks. One of Facebook’s very first 3D games. Simply by looking at the screenshot, I seriously don’t think it gives the game any justice. So in order to show you how good the game looks in action, I actually got a video screen capture of the game in action.

If you saw the video above, you may see that BattlePunks, in its very core, plays just like another popular web-based game; MyBrute. There is another game that plays just like MyBrute in facebook, but this one just feels and plays so much better overall, you can’t help but be hooked.

However, despite the look and feel of the game, BattlePunks’ is definitely no MyBrute clone. They definitely stepped up and delivered alot of improvements, instead of just being another clone.

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One of those features is an equipment system ala-Diablo. It’s a very great system wherein players can plan out and strategize which weapons/armors/skills they want to bring to battle, while managing the slots available to them at a time. It gives the game a level of depth that isn’t found on MyBrute, as well as its many clones on facebook.

Not surprising, considering one of Gravity Bear’s founders is a former staffer of Blizzard and was part of Diablo II’s team. And the level of quality is simply there, these guys aren’t slouching around and handing out a half-assed game with pretty graphics. This is proof that quality games CAN exist on Facebook.