The Five: Parabellum

4/8/2009 6:11 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 1

Meet the Parents: Parabellum, ACONY's free-to-play MMO shooter, is a team-based shooter set in a future New York City, where rival factions vie for key deployment points on a map that looks like it might have been lifted from a Bionic Commando game. It is being developed using Epic's Unreal 3 Engine, and is being billed as one of the first AAA free-to-play games. The game is currently more shooter than MMO, but is still in an early stage of development.

1. It's Counter-Strike meets persistent-world gaming. Parabellum is played on a campaign map where one team tries to disarm a bomb while the other tries to run the clock out. Teams will have two routes that lead to the nuke, but they'll have to fight their way through points on the map that require different tactics, like close-quarters combat and sniping. The terrorists can play defense, slowing down the CT team while the clock ticks away or forcing them to take an alternate route that might be longer. If the clock runs out, the bomb goes kaboom. No matter who wins the campaign, everyone earns experience points that can be used to buy additional gear and weapon customizations like scopes and larger ammo loadouts.

2. Through microtransactions, players can buy extras like armor, ammunition clips and the abilities to upload a clan logo, turn advertising off, and upload a battle song of their choice. My concern is that if two players of the same skill level are fighting, and one of them has bought these extras, it may give that player a slight advantage. The development team says that skilled players will have no problems taking out those players who have bought extra perks.

3. Many little refinements keep it real. The elimination of bunny-hopping is one enhancement: You never see real soldiers hopping around like jackasses, and you won't see it in this game, either. The game also features a timed reload mini-game similar to what is in Gears of War. Hit the mark and you reload; miss it and your gun jams for a few minutes.

4. It comes with a four-year service plan. ACONY emphasized that its plan is about service to the community, whether that means providing social networking tools, creating more maps, changing gameplay, or adding new game modes. How all this will happen is hypothetical right now, but it's good to know someone is thinking ahead.

5. With games like Quake Live, Battlefield Heroes and K2's own War Rock, Parabellum faces some stiff competition. It is hard to know if it will be able to take on these and other games in the free-to-play space, or if it can carve out enough of a niche audience to survive.

Prediction: With more polish and playtesting, Parabellum could carve out its own little niche audience. The challenge that ACONY and publisher K2 face is the stiff competition already lined up, and getting the word out to shooter fans. The game is set for a late-2009 deployment via the K2 Network/GamersFirst.

This preview is based on a publisher-driven demo of the game at GDC 2009.