Combat Arms

 Combat Arms Review

Combat Arms is published by Nexon, the company behind the anime styled MMOs Maple Story, Mabinogi and Audition. When I first heard they were releasing a realistic FPS I have to admit I was a bit skeptical but after spending several hours playing Combat Arms, I can safely say they managed to meet and exceed my expectations. Combat Arms launched in North America in mid 2008 and in Europe in Early 2009.

Jump Right In

After registration, getting started in Combat Arms only takes a few moments. Chose your character’s gender and appearance from the few available choices and you’re ready to go. No boring tutorials or license tests necessary. The only set up required is an optional one and that is visiting the store to purchase new guns. As mentioned in the Overview, the default beginner gun in Combat Arms is very weak and suffers from heavy recoil. Luckily, new players start with enough in game currency (GP) to purchase better equipment. But before you blow all your money on the most expensive primary, secondary and throwing weapons keep in mind that earning additional GP is very time consuming. On average, players receive a few hundred GP per round with the average gun costing over 1000 GP to rent for a week. After adding optional attachments such as a scope or a larger ammo clip, the cost for a week’s worth of gear can really add up.

Shoot it Up

After gearing up, you are free to jump into room of your choosing. Combat Arms currently has five standard game modes and one seasonal special mode called Snowball fight. For a full list of game modes and their description, take a look at the Overview. Despite six different modes, nearly half the matches being played at any given time are Elimination. Elimination is a team based death match where the first team to reach a certain number of collective kills wins the round. Friendly fire is almost always turned off but can be activated by the host before the beginning of a round. The host also chooses which of the 10 maps will be played. The controls in Combat Arms are traditional FPS controls; W,A,S,D move, the mouse fires (left click) zooms in (right click), shift sprints, ctrl crouches, R reloads, space bar jumps and the number keys switch weapons. The graphics in Combat Arms are crisp and the game offers many advanced video options such as anti aliasing and support for dozens of resolutions. Out of all the currently available free to play MMOFPS games, Combat Arms is the best looking.

Knock Back

Combat Arms bills itself as a modern, realistic shooter which means you have to deal with recoil. It’s almost impossible to spray in Combat Arms and hope to get a kill, your bullets will end up flying in every direction but straight ahead. To make things worse, the default beginner gun is one of the most difficult guns to fire properly. Don’t be surprised if you get demolished in your first few rounds since there is a learning curve involved. The trick is to fire in short 1-3 bullet bursts while remaining stationary if at all possible. Obviously if an opponent is only a few feet away you can simply hold the fire button and pepper him with bullets but in most cases the enemy will be some distance away. Luckily, defeated players drop their weapons which means you can walk to their corpse and click ‘E’ to pick up their gun. Even the guns of higher leveled players can be acquired this way, at least until you die. Most purchased guns are far superior to the beginner one on all accounts; recoil, damage, range and so on.

Have it Your Way

Including all primary, secondary, melee and grenades there are currently a total of 70+ weapons in Combat Arms. Many of these have rank requirements but plenty are available to even low ranking players. Each player can carry one of each weapon type and has one extra backpack slot which can be filled with an additional gun of choice. Obviously the best option is put another primary gun in this slot so you can switch between them in-game. For example, you can purchase a deadly medium ranged AK-47 and a long distanced sniper and carry both with you. Secondary guns consist of pistols and several shot guns. Which you chose to use depends on your play style but from my experience shot guns are much more fun than small side arms. Combat Arms has an interesting attachment feature which allows players to purchase extra add-ons to their guns. Not all guns have the same attachments available but they are usually similar. For example, a laser sighted scope can be attached to an AK-47 instantly making it deadly as much a short and long ranged weapon. Larger ammo clips can be purchased so that you can go longer without needing to reload.

Black Market

Despite being a free game, Combat Arms still needs to make money. Like most other free games, Combat Arms pays the bills with an in-game cash shop. While the weapons and equipment offered in this ‘Black Market’ are powerful, they are not game breaking. Just like the normal shop, the black market items also have expiration dates which makes it very difficult for a casual player to keep himself well armed. Not only is the casual gamer out gunned by paying users but also by those who play enough matches a day to keep themselves armed with the best guns, attachments, and equipment from the normal store. If you can over look this one game defect, Combat Arms is a superior shooter than Operation 7, War Rock, and Soldier Front which are its three main competitors in the modern themed first person shooter genre.

Final Verdict: Great

Combat Arms is the best MMOFPS currently available. The game has great graphics along with a huge selection of guns that take time and skill to learn how to fire properly. The fact that all purchases expire within a month adds a great deal of frustration to an otherwise enjoyable game.