GameLight - Hellgate Tokyo

Kotaku reported that HanbitSoft is ready to bring the resurrection of Hellgate back to North America this Summer of June-July.  What a lot of people may not know is that it's not going to be Hellgate: London and will be Hellgate: Tokyo.

Source: Youtube Channel Alternalo

Hellgate was planned to be a multi-part series spanning the story to different parts of the world.  I heard about Hellgate: Tokyo quite a while ago (over a year ago) and had hoped to see it brought over.  Hellgate: London was originally developed by Flagship Studios and was made up of ex-Blizzard employees and many other talented members of the game industry.  It was an ambitious game that broke away from how MMOs were generally made and captivated many players throughout the world, but struggled to bring any new content to the game.  There were problems with subscriptions, game breaking bugs, and a lot of repetition in its gameplay.  I've played the single-player campaign before and really enjoyed it, but could see much more improvement to it.  I'm glad that such a project didn't just die off when it had so much potential and was bought up by HanbitSoft so that the game could continue to grow.

Source: Kotaku - The Hellgate Reopens over North America in June 
Official Site: http://hg.hanbiton.com/Home/Home.aspx

GameLight - CardMon Hero

This week, I have a line up of GameLight and GameLight Reviews from just this past weekend.  I beta tested 2 MMOs and completed two other games and am working on finishing one other.  Also, be sure to check out major electronics stores next Monday for early Black Friday sales such as Steam, Newegg, Amazon.com, etc.  Recession is bad, and games are expensive, so try to get the ones you want during the up coming sales.

[CardMon Hero - HanbitSoft/T3 Entertainment - PC]


Source: Youtube Channel UKGameOn

CardMon Hero is an Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that follows the game structure of many other free online MMORPGs: Create a character, find a quest, kill some monsters.  Every MMORPG (usually) has a unique twist that makes it special and different from other competitors, and for CardMon Hero it is summonings.  To keep it simple, it's essentially Pokémon crosses with MMORPG (like Fly For Fun).  The player captures monsters and units in cards and then summons them to fight along side the player.

Screenshot by Shuriken

 

Pros:
-Comfortable graphics.  They're easy on the eyes
-Various summons to aid the player
-Lots of instances, quests, and pvp events
-Gameplay is easy to learn despite the dynamics of the summons
-Player has more freedom of how they want to start out (in terms of class/weapon)
-Easygoing and fitting soundtrack

Cons:
-In terms of gameplay, CardMon Hero doesn't have that much to offer that other free games couldn't
-Animation in the character's movement and NPC are erratic, awkward, and unnatural
-Game progresses slowly (whether there is grinding or not, I am not certain)

The game is interesting and is somewhat entertaining; however, it's also a game I don't feel like investing a lot of time into.  Games should not require a player to plug in hour, days, and weeks in order to enjoy it, because not everyone has the luxury of spending so much time just to level up or gain a new item.  The process of leveling up and gaining those new items should be just as entertaining as end-game content.  CardMon Hero ended Closed Beta just this past weekend and will be up shortly for it's next phase, so be sure to check it out if you're interested: http://cardmon.t3fun.com/Home/Intro.aspx