WAR ROCK

War Rock Review

By Erhan Altay

War Rock is a Korean shooter published in North America and Europe by Gamers First. Like many other free to play shooters, War Rock has a ‘modern combat’ theme. Originally released back in 2004, the game’s graphics are beginning to show their age, but War Rock is still the most feature rich free to play FPS available. Three unique game modes and the ability to play 5 different soldier types is the kind of stuff you normally only find in retail games like Battlefield 2.

Rock The Basics

Gamer’s First has a typical registration process but requires a ‘nickname’ which must be different than your user ID, at least six characters long and cannot include capital letters or numbers. This might not sound complicated but after several attempts at an original name, I ended up going with random letters out of frustration. Once you got your account settled, you’re ready to log in and start playing right away. War Rock has no character creation, instead players simply log in with their and are immediately taken to the channel select screen. The most popular channels seem to be US East, US vs EUR, and EUR vs US. War Rock has no tutorial so I’ll take a moment to explain some of the controls. Like most shooters, movement is done through the W A S D keys, space bar jumps, 1-5 switch weapons and the mouse fires/zooms. The ‘shift’ key allows your character to preform a tumble, double tapping ‘W’ lets you sprint and clicking ‘c’ crouches, hitting it again while crouching puts you in a prone position. That’s basically it; aiming, strafing and figuring out how to manage recoil all take experience and cannot be explained easily. My only problem with War Rock’s controls were that its very difficult to know whether or not you’re actually hitting your opponent. Hit detection doesn’t seem to be the problem, it just doesn’t give the one doing the hitting much notice.

Classic Deathmatch

As mentioned earlier, War Rock has three game modes; Close Quarter Combat, Urban Ops, and Battle Group. The first and most popular of these, at least among casual players, is Close Quarter Combat. Those familiar with FPS games should have no trouble figuring this mode out. 8-16 players, separated into two teams, battle it out on small maps in a series of rounds with the objective of kill all members of the opposing force. This mode is best for a quick game or if you’re looking for an experience similar to the popular Counter Strike shooter. Since this game mode is the quickest and easiest to jump into, its the best for earning dinars and experience for higher ranks. The only problem with this mode is that every other free to player shooter has an almost identical mode but does it better. Because of its age, War Rock’s ‘Close Quarter Combat’ mode simply cannot stand up to more recent games like Combat Arms. War Rock has fewer map choices (3 for non premium members), uglier terrain, and gameplay that just feels old. Its the other two modes that earn War Rock my recommendation.

Welcome to the Battlefield

Urban Ops and Battle Group are similar game modes except for the number of players and the size of the maps. Urban Ops has a maximum of 24 players while Battle Group has a cap of 32. Urban Ops maps are medium sized while Battle Group maps are huge and very inconvenient to traverse without a vehicle. The number and variety of vehicles avail also differ slightly with Battle Group maps having many more vehicles available. The basic goal of the two, however, is identical. Reduce the enemy team’s tickets to 0 by killing them and capturing and holding strategic points across the map. Players can respawn at strategic bases their team controls and having control of the majority of points causes the opposing team’s tickets to decrease faster. Neutral vehicle spawns are scattered around strategic points, with most being near each team’s starting base. Vehicles include tanks, armored personal carriers (APCs), jeeps, attack helicopters, motorcycles, gun boats, and various kinds of jet planes. In order to enter a vehicle, a player must stand nearby and hi ‘f.’ Most vehicles have more than one slot meaning multiple players can enter it and man different stations. For example, the first player to enter a tank takes control of its movement and main turret while additional players can jump in and control the tank’s machine guns. Just like players themselves, vehicles can be damaged and destroyed. Some vehicles are immune to ordinary bullets but still take heavy damage from specialty weapons such as the Heavy Trooper’s RPG or mines. The random games you’re likely to join have very little in the way of coordination so matches usually end up as giant playgrounds where players take turns smashing tanks and planes into each other but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Members Only

One of War Rocks largest flaws, especially from the perspective of a site dedicated to free games, is the how much content is off limits to non-members. Members who pay a monthly fee are rewarded with access to farm more maps and are able to purchase many of the most powerful guns through the game’s shop. The game’s currency, dinars are even doled out the members monthly as a bonus. I’m not as concerned about the guns, I always view being poorly equipped as an additional challenge but having access to only 3 maps in Close Quarter Combat mode and 6 in the Battle Group is discouraging. The Clan system which War Rock boasts about was temporarily disabled during the time I played but my guess is non members don’t stand much of a chance in the competitive clan environment. Nevertheless, there is nothing stopping players from enjoying War Rock without paying a dime. There are plenty of free shooters out there but none that emulate battlefield experience quite like War Rock. If you’re been looking for a poor man’s Battlefield 2, War Rock is it.

Final Verdict: Good

War Rock isn’t the flashiest shooter out there but it offers much more than the competition. Nothing beats riding a motorcycle while dodging strafing helicopters and war planes. A recent patch and ban sweep seem to have taken care of the hackers (for now) so be sure to give War Rock a shot if you’re a fan of the genre.