Review: Secrets of the Solstice

Naturally, I've fallen back into the habit of MMORPG's, and my current fix is a game by Outspark, who also have other MMO's such as Project Snow, Fists of Fu and Fiesta. Secrets of the Solstice is a 3D Fantasy MMO that reminds me a lot of Ragnarok Online. There are four basic classes, with two of them branching off into another Class (Neophytes may become Rogues or Scouts, Acolytes may become Priests or Disciples), along with several dungeons and party experiences, most of which I've never seen in an MMO before.

What does it bring to the ever expanding MMO world?
Well, the most important thing that I've noticed is the community. Far too often, MMO's have "invisible GM's", who never show up in game, or hold events maybe once a month. With Secrets of the Solstice's two GM's, Phibes and RoboPanda, they hold events daily, ranging from odd quizzes to rare monster spawns, or just plain hide and seek. With the events, brings in permanent Cash Shop items for the winners of said events, something rarely done in other MMO's. They also treat dungeons differently, in a more competitive fashion. Each dungeon has level brackets, in which teams may compete to get the high score for the dungeon and recieve rare prizes, along with collecting materials to craft items from the dungeons themselves. To make sure that the system isn't abused, there is a time limit between two runs of the same dungeon, which keeps it balanced and still fun.

Along with all of the regular grinding goodness, Secrets of the Solstice has hundreds of quests, with each NPC in the world giving at least one quest, with many of them repeatable. Quests range from the beginner "Hunt X monsters" to the extremely long Pet Quest, which can take months of effort because of materials required and cooldowns.


So what sucks about it?
Naturally, all games have problems. While Secrets of the Solstice has it's active community, the economy has been shifted because of an exploit in the past and is often difficult to make a lot of money. With that, there is also the Cash Shop users vs. the free players. naturally, to have a free game you must collect revenue somehow, and so the Cash shop is there for that, but the strength of the CS items vs. the regular in game items is very large, and not all players can afford to spend real money on the game, while some spend plenty of cash in the shop, to power level or get extremely good gear.


Secrets of the Solstice is a Free to play MMO created by Outspark, and is quickly growing. Outspark will launch SoS: Reborn soon, which I will review as soon as possible.

No reviews for a bit..

..Unless you want to hear about Lego: Batman and Pure, which have killed some time for me in between Monday Night Combat. Aside from that, I'm looking into acquiring a Pandora computer, whether by my eventual employment and paycheck, or Christmas. The Pandora is a handheld computer, roughly the size of the first generation "fat" Nintendo DS, but it has a 43 QWERTY Keyboard, a sizeable screen and graphics card, and runs on a Linux shell, and it also has a D-Pad, buttons, and analog nubs.

Review: Monday Night Combat

Uber Entertainment's Monday Night Combat  is a game of skill. A game of war. A game of advertisements.

For 1200 Microsoft Points, you can purchase MNC and own one of the best Class-Based shooters. It features six-on-six Xbox Live games, which can go up for a maximum of 17 minutes (Including Overtime) per round, six diverse classes to choose from, and 30 "Endorsements" (similar to Modern Warfare 2's Perk system), and 99 levels of bragging rights. There are two game modes, Crossfire and Blitz.
          Blitz is similar to a turret defense game, where you must protect your Moneyball from the bots with turrets and firepower, with several different difficulties, which you can play both on and offline. Crossfire is an online only, six-v-six bloody brawl. Each team (Hotshots and Icemen, clever names for the usual red and blue teams) has their own Moneyball, and six turret nubs to build and sustain to defend their base, while they guide their bots to the enemy base, destroy the Moneyball, and win.

What I enjoyed
MNC has a great player base, an amazing sense of humor and great core game play that has kept me busy since it's release on August 11th. Each game can play differently, with the environmental hazards, what bots or turrets you choose to build, what classes and endorsements you use, and how you spend your money.Each class is unique, with three skills they can use in battle, a grapple on their secondary weapon, and a passive skill that can affect their weapons, health, and more. They also get three different endorsements, which range from Gold being the most effective, to Bronze, the least effective. With that, each class spawns a different type of bot, ranging from the kamikaze Buzzers to the heavy Bouncers, which grapple enemy Pro's. There are four different maps, with more on the way via DLC, each one different in their own ways, and various environmental hazards and walls, back passages and ads to keep you distracted. The humor in the game is fantastic, with the sly jokes of each character in their taunts, to the endorsement taglines, and the announcer, Mickey Cantor, who chooses to live a poor life, and wants everyone to know.

What I didn't enjoy. At all.
Despite all the praise I have just slaved over to type, there are a few flaws. The game has numerous bugs that must be fixed, along with a small repertoire of maps to play on. The announcer can also become annoying after a while, with the repeated lines. Luckily, Uber Entertainment has stated that there will be bug fixes for all the known problems very soon, along with a free map before the first DLC hits the Xbox Live Marketplace.

What do I think of all of this? I enjoy the game. I play daily, if not every other day. The gameplay is much less "hardcore" than Halo or Modern Warfare, with a great sense of humor and many ways to play one class. I'll give it a 4.5/5, because some of the bugs do make the game hindering, and of course there are players who abuse these bugs and make the game unpleasant to play.


Want to play sometime? Add me on Xbox Live, or send me a message. I'm on nearly every day, Eastern time zone.


All images, and Monday Night Combat are owned by Uber Entertainment http://www.uberent.com/

It has been quite a long time...

...since I have updated, or even read this blog. In 2008, I was still attending my local High School, inexperienced in both social activities and what I wanted to be, outside of public schooling. Since then, my life has been troubling, with my father going to jail for a few days, to me living with my best friend, Alex, for a few months in my final year of High School, and just about everything in between. With those changes in my life, I have changed as well. I plan on reinstating this blog, along with a more personal blog for my own personal life, and to hopefully become a published 'blogger' (oh, the irony.) or whatever fate guides me to. With this, I will continue to review video games, but I will also branch out into Traditional Gaming, in the form of Magic: The Gathering (Both new card sets, and with whatever changes WoTC brings to the game), and Heroclix, a game I have recently picked up and fallen deeply into a pit of geek. With these, I will use the classic Five-star rating system and will try to make both this blog and my personal blog look much better than they do now. With that said, I will review Monday Night Combat, a game created by Uber Entertainment later today.