I’ve been recently hearing news about a new PC game called FireFall. Although currently in it’s beta testing phase, I have been watching game videos of this title and so far, I have high hopes for this game. To describe this game, FireFall is huge, open-world cooperative and competitive campaign that plays completely online. This means that you are able to play against hundreds of other players from across the world who are both playing the game together in leagues and clans, as well as competing in ladders and tournaments.
In FireFall, you have the opportunity to join a clan or guild-like group. The equivalent to guilds that other players can join are called armies. Being in an army has benefits that game players can take advantage of. So far, these abilities and advantages seem to be rumors, although there is one thing that a member of an army can take advantage of. This advantage is called Thumper. Thumper is a mining system that will be dropped from either orbit or shuttle, and allows a player in the army to gather crystite anywhere in the world. Of course, deploying a Thumper has it’s disadvantages as well. It will attract hostile creatures that you must fight off so you can continue mining for material.
There are different classes in FireFall as well that you can choose from. These classes, or Battleframes as they are known in the video game, appear to have at least three choices available for the player to choose from. These classes are Assault, Recon and Medic. Although those three have been playable in the PAX East 2011 demo, the Engineer was announced as another Battleclass, although it was unplayable.
From what I’ve seen so far from the game videos and information given from the game developers at Red 5 Studios, the game looks very cool. I really like the idea of being able to play online with other players, both cooperatively and competitively. I’ve always been a fan of those video games where I can play with others and be able to work with them, and not just against them all the time. I like the choice that is given. It seems that with FireFall, both competitive and cooperative have been nicely melded together in this game.
Recently I’ve signed up at the website, www.firefallthegame.com to take part in the Beta testing. I hope to receive my invite soon so I can actually take part in the game and really give the game a go. From what It seems that FireFall will be a Free to Play video game, so that is an incredible plus. Currently, the game is working on an invite system.
Here is an excerpt from Mark Kern, the CEO of Red 5 Studios on the invite system:
“To explain our launch process further. We already consider ourselves “launched.” We will not have a traditional beta, open beta, launch process. We no longer feel this makes sense in a modern, online, service oriented business, especially a free2play game. Instead, we have modeled our launch after G-mail’s invite system.
The way this works is that we bring testers and content up in layers. As each layer proves itself out, we give our testers invite slots, which they are free to send to their fellow gamers. We use different criteria to decide when and to whom we release more invite slots. This process never stops, as it didn’t stop for G-mail for a very long time. It’s a great way to grow the game through people’s social networks, which is what we want for our team and clan oriented game.”
Impressions of FireFall the Game