Air rivals is a massive online (MMO) 3D space shooter, which is based by commandeering your own space plane which in the game called gears. And you start in an imaginary planet; you can upgrade you goodies and gear. With a new type of interface, which rivals on the previous click order of online RPG, the online game has a mix of RPG and FPS environment where you mostly play in the air or in space on your flashy plane.
Publisher: GameForge
Developer: Masang Soft
Genre: Sci-fi online Role-playing
Release date: Apr 10, 2008 (EU)
Area: EU/ Global
Air Rivals as you may know is a sci-fi online game that lets you in the flight seat of your space plane called a “Gear”, being published by GameForge and a backed Korean developer Masang Soft, which is brought to your by Space Cowboy, which makes the Air Rival its next successor. Air gear has almost the same interface and “gears” as with the former Space Cowboys. Air Rival, rivals with the PS2 game Ace combat, where they have the same ego,on plane first and ask questions later, where they focus in plane combat.
Air gear starts with you with selecting your character with eight distinct characters you can choose from (and all come from the same country), next you are prompt to select on the gear you want, and the choices are the I, A, M and the B gear, were they have unique attributes, and set of different starting gear. In the star of the game is the kinky helper in the game, where she “guides” you to every detail, on how to create your character and selecting on your gear, if you want real engagement, not in battle but a pixelated lady, or find a much better game that includes an anime lady, buy it!
Enough if that, lets start with the interface, you are based in your home city, which you chose from the Bygeniou controlled area and the Arlington area. While in the character mode you have a bird’s eye view of your character, like the example in World of Warcraft, were you can see in every angle of your character, if you chose a female character, you feel kind of lucky, but the downside is that you don’t have weapons and special moves for the character and which WOW have, and in this mode you have the mouse interface to move and order you character to move and talk to other people in your home city. And the other mode is the plane combat mode, is where, and only, the place you go battling with your gear with other gears. Is where to execute this mode is by pressing or clicking the take off button, will turn automatically to the hanger and take off from there, while the interface is kind of simple and restrictive, and the two mode you can do are third person and first person view, which doesn’t show the cockpit, which is a disappointment, for the neat controls and the infamous joystick.
While and amazing game that combines the looks of RF online for the character mode and the dog fights like Ace combat in the air in plane mode, has made a mark for free MMORPG games that I could think of. But the flaws in the clunky interface in character mode and the design and the limitations of types of planes on fighter mode, is a number of list of disappointments in the game, all in all, a new type of playing MMORPG like Air Rival in a thing to look at.
To digg at: +a new look at MMORPG games, +3D interface design, +hundreds of missions to be very busy at, +millions of items and gear to acquire.
The coolant (the bad): -the clunky interface in character mode, -the limitations of design in first person in the cock pit, -a restricted interface, -limitations of selecting only three gears.