WarFrame (Free to play)

CrazyRabbit

In case anyone was wondering, this is an extremely fun game. It's still in Beta, so has a few bugs and your character will be wiped on release day. But, I'm having a blast playing it.

At times, it does seem very very tempting to buy items which gives a sense of 'pay to win', but practically every item can be found in-game for free. You just need patience. You only need to buy more character slots really.

Progression feels slow, but by the 20th hour of gameplay, you'll be fully engrossed in the game and things start moving along more quickly. One odd thing is that you will be using your starter weapons for a very long time...about 25-20 hours. They gain XP which unlocks Mod slots though. Mods can add certain affects to the weapon (fire rate, fire damage, % damage increase etc). Mods drop from enemies at random. Blueprints to build items are random as well, though bosses drop them more often.
The weapons can become become many times more powerful than the base weapon. You equip a main gun, a pistol and a melee weapon. The weapons are varied as well (you can use a bow, sniper rifle, bolt firing-nail-enemies-to-the-wall guns, rifle, shotgun etc).

When you start you get to choose from 1 of a few starter Warframes. Choose well, you only get 1 for free. (You can build more much later, or buy them). Each Warframe is very distinctive, with their own powerful but situational abilities. And you don't get to spam them either. Choosing just the right time to unleash an AoE ability can turn an entire battle.

And speaking of battles....they are epic. Your character seamlessly switches between a rifle, pistol or a kickass melee sword. Enemies can and do spawn from all over the place giving a nice hectic feel to fights. There are many different mission types as well.
There are many types of missions, from sabotage, or protect or capture missions. And there are 3 main enemy factions, each with their unique 'units', some of which can be devastating.

Some missions can be done solo...especially after you level up your guns/mods, but this is definitely a multiplayer game. Missions are hard...very hard, especially the Defence missions. Joining a group is super easy though. Just choose the mission you want to do and the game does the rest within about 5 seconds.

So, if you want a great 3rd person 'shooter/hack em up' that is very unique in how it handles leveling, and you have some patience, this is a game you should try.

Here's a good video showing the gameplay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyK46LuFNbM

Gunmonkey

Been a game I wanted to try, runing round hacking stuff up is always fun. Design of the Frames themselves also looks pretty unique.

CrazyRabbit

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Been a game I wanted to try, runing round hacking stuff up is always fun. Design of the Frames themselves also looks pretty unique.

Yeah, they are basically Ninja in 'Crysis' suits. Oh, I forget to mention...lots of ninja-like parkour in the game as well. You can run up walls and run along them.

YouSavedMyLife

Been playing this awhile now. Not something i can play for more than 1-2 hours as it gets quick repetitive, but its nice for a quick fix. That being said i do have a level 30 supercharged Warframe. Working towards building another one but the material drops are pretty poor, fun game otherwise.

Sarky

I gave this a go last night.

Quite impressive, I have to say. It's very slick. Solo'd the first mission or two handily enough but the difficulty spikes soon after, pretty much necessitating a team. I quite like the mod/upgrade system, and the design of the armour and weapons is lovely. It's a pity that the healing warframes have to be purchased or built after collecting tonnes of in-game stuff, but free-to-play does have its foibles. That annoyance aside, it's some very nice run-and-gun action and no mistake.

I'd be well up for giving it a go with some other players, the powers seem very much designed to complement each other.

ShadowHearth

Sarky wrote: »

I gave this a go last night.

Quite impressive, I have to say. It's very slick. Solo'd the first mission or two handily enough but the difficulty spikes soon after, pretty much necessitating a team. I quite like the mod/upgrade system, and the design of the armour and weapons is lovely. It's a pity that the healing warframes have to be purchased or built after collecting tonnes of in-game stuff, but free-to-play does have its foibles. That annoyance aside, it's some very nice run-and-gun action and no mistake.

I'd be well up for giving it a go with some other players, the powers seem very much designed to complement each other.

I was quite interested to give this a go, but I am really getting tired of free to play model. You need to devote a lot of time in to game like this and you won't have time for other games. Yes, you can buy stuff make it faster, but it completely removes the reward feeling and point of playing.
I would prefer just to buy boxed copy at this stage, then devote myself to another free to play game . Its really shame, there are good games like this in free to play model, which suffer a lot from it.

Overheal

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I was quite interested to give this a go, but I am really getting tired of free to play model. You need to devote a lot of time in to game like this and you won't have time for other games. Yes, you can buy stuff make it faster, but it completely removes the reward feeling and point of playing.
I would prefer just to buy boxed copy at this stage, then devote myself to another free to play game . Its really shame, there are good games like this in free to play model, which suffer a lot from it.

Depends. I've made several purchases for Planetside 2 that helped facilitate my playstyle (and some vanity items, sue me) and to be fair it made the game a little more enjoyable which makes leveling up without additional purchases a bit easier. I spent the longest time using the stock rifles but bought into one of the nicer SMGs and its been a much more pleasant experience, ditto on some different vehicle and anti-vehicle weaps.

Sarky

I hate sniping, but I love stealth, so spending a couple of euros on an SMG for my infiltrator completely changed that class for me. Totally worth it. And it's wonderful having a heavy assault with a choice of rocket launchers.

Anyway. Warframe still going well. You can really trick out your gear with the mods enemies drop. Those fusion cores are lovely stuff, bumped my shield and health by 140% each, and weapons are doing some serious damage now, and I haven't paid a cent for the game yet. I'm really enjoying it, even solo, so I'm going to throw some money their way in the near future.