Kingsroad is an action, co-op RPG from Rumble Games playable on Facebook or on Rumble Games own site Browser games rarely try and push the envelope in terms of creativity or game play. They just don’t because it’s quite a big risk there are problems with cloning the casual player is easily put off by the complexity and the freemium model so often attracts controversy in terms of the differences between free players and the whales that invest real moola into their game experience. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that Rumble headed by ex Bioware CEO Greg Richardson are able to bring some of the quality production and gameplay you expect from Bioware and EA games to the social networking scene.
There’s a great deal of immediacy to this and initial simplicity, point and click, walk and blast, collect, level, repeat. The mobs however, quickly get tougher and more intelligent and you have to start thinking about your class’s fighting style. You will be forced to use the keyboard shortcuts rather than mouse clicking the interface to trigger your attacks and abilities. It gets very frenetic and I’m immediately reminded of the Diablo series.
This is a hack and slash with a nice co-op angle. You can play it either on rumble or on Facebook which is handy for finding people you know to play with. In fact, I was quite surprised and encouraged to see how many of the reprobates I call friends were all ready playing. You have three choices of character mage knight and archer the classic trinity of play style tank, DPS and kite. I was pleased to see that the game did actually have a reasonable level of survivability in all the single player though he will get his mystical behind kicked by the level boss if you are not very quick with the heals. The co-op is simple but sufficient for game style you can click on the find party key in the town section and you will be matched with three players in the level. There is a text chat function but due to the frantic action of the levels you will probably need to just make your plan in between groups of enemies and then watch your fellow heroes forget the plan and pull a Leroy Jenkins.
As you progress through the levels you gain experience and items. On levelling you get a point to spend on useful abilities and they can be spent on a wide range of active and passive buffs and debuffs. Personally, I’m very enamoured of the life stealing passive that covers up a multitude of my healing errors. The items that drop from opponents and from the various chests on the route also posses little abilities and debuffs, increases in critical hit chance for instance. Another great aspect of the levelling system is that it can reward you with game currency that you would ordinarily purchase, in fact the whole balance in the monetization is incredibly fair compared to the majority of social games and this reflects that the developers have come from the real gaming community rather than the gambling and betting community. Monetized skins are always a good sign as they affect game play not one bit, but allow fans to give something back to the developers.
The sound and graphics in this game are spot on and whilst in the general game market, we have come to expect quality art assets in the social game scene they have been traditionally lacking. In the main the reason for this was due to technical limitations and a lack of competition. Kings road has some very meaty sound effects that work well to heighten the sense of action ,the sprites are a delight very detailed and well designed mobs and bosses and the player characters reflect your progress as the items you pick up actually appear on your sprite. Did I mention there are guilds you can join and that as you all play you earn guild points that earn you all in game bonuses and benefits. Faster regeneration of health and mana or reduced death timers and increased experience bonuses.
So to round things up a bit this is certainly worth playing as it’s effectively free to play in a very real sense of the word because you won’t need to pay to work your way through the game but should you spend a little on it and perhaps buy some skins or chests? Well, give it a go and if you find it’s your kind of thing, then certainly it would be a safe spend the developers have put in some good work here and they work very hard on community management and interaction with the fans they have certainly earned their due recompense.
The production values are high the game play is intense and well balanced. Sure, it is fairly casual but then you expect that from social games and the Flipside of this is that it’s easy to pick up and play.
I give this a four because I can’t give a four and a half and because I have to save my fives for the game I would marry and have kids with.
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Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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