Microvolts round-up now online

Just a quick update to let everyone know, the Microvolts round-up video is now online. Next week I will be planning a couple of shows that I will be streaming during the week, stay tuned for more information.

Microvolts and Microtransactions

As part of this weekends series on Microvolts, I will be starting by discussing the market and it's transactions. I will be uploading a first impressions game play later on this evening, so I will use todays blog to discuss the customization available.

As is the norm with free to play games, you can purchase items for varying duration's. If you choose to purchase an item for an unlimited duration you can then use a third currency in game to upgrade the item. You have a chance when killing someone in game for them to drop energy which is used to upgrade. So far I haven't found any set pattern as to when you receive this, so I can't recommend easy ways to farm it. Each weapon has 5 available upgrades for it.

In terms of real money purchasing, the game is fairly cheap to play. If you choose to purchase a weapon with real funds it will cost you just short of $10. The power increase on weapons between free and real money is around 3-5% increase, so these aren't required. Purchasing armor however has quite a bigger increase available on it. The bonuses from armor, either health or run speed and on the accessories extra ammo, is usually double. The increases on health for example are 20 on free, and 40 on the purchased items. If you purchase a full kit for 90 days (The maximum duration), it will set you back around $15, which works out at $5 a month. Not bad at all when you think the game is free to download, cheaper than any MMO going.

As I stated, later on tonight I will be having a video go live, and I am currently trying to get a stream going as well. Just a note to the Nexiuz fans reading this, don't worry I haven't forgotten about the game I am just waiting on the PC release before I go really in depth into it.

If No Cliché made a third person shooter

The original Dreamcast cover.

The title will most likely bewilder most of my readers, and certainly most of todays gamers. No Cliché  was a developer for the Dreamcast, and sadly only ever had the chance to make two games, one of which was a cheap game for the purpose of people testing out DreamArena their online service. The game I am speaking about is non other than Toy Commander.

Toy Commander is now regarded as some what of a cult classic. With the Dreamcast not doing so well in sales, it never got much coverage, especially with the idea that you were just essentially playing with toys. However beyond the toy skin lay one of the most entertaining gaming experiences I have ever had. The story behind it was how Guthy (Called Andy in the US version) had received new toys for Christmas and he neglected his old toys. Because of this his older toys decided to rebel.

Now I know this sounds like a crazy story-line, however it worked really well. You played in 8 different levels, all based on a room in his house, and upon completing a room you unlocked the next. You played as different vehicles which split up into three categories, ground, air and helicopter. Where Toy Commander shone though was it's game play. The levels and missions were vast and different, most of them required you to do varying objectives and the only mission that seemed to be a recurring theme was how each room had a race mission. Unlike how you might imagine, the game was actually fairly difficult and to beat the final boss you needed to defeat every other boss in the game to stand a chance. When you beat a boss you unlocked the ability to use it in the final battle, something you really needed to be able to do.

This ties us in nicely to the game I am playing this week, Microvolts. Like Toy Commander you are again playing as the role of toys in varying domestic environments, however this time it's a third person shooter. So far I've spent a few hours on the game, but the first impressions are solid. The graphic style is fantastic and the game play is unique for todays market as it features a variety of weapons available on spawn. These weapons are more like what you would find in an arena shooter however, with this such as gattling guns, rocket launchers and grenade launchers being the flavor of the day. You can purchase new weapons with typical free to play style, but the real money weapons seem to have higher stats. They don't seem like a giant increase from what I have seen, usually around 2-5% damage increase which I doubt will break the game. You can also dress your character cosmetically, with each item having either extra HP or movement speed.

Splash art for Microvolts.

The game is available at www.microvolts.com and I will be playing it over the weekend with the ingame name of Nood1e. I certainly recommend every to try this as the game is a huge amount of fun and I plan on doing a lot more content for it. There should, sound codecs permitting, be a first impressions video for it going online tomorrow evening with more written and video content over the weekend.