G*Star 2010

Hey again. Yeah, I'm pumping out blogs like it's nobody's business.

But this time, the title is actually relevant. Today, we're gonna take a look at G★Star 2010, which is the Asian equivalent of the E3 Gaming Expo. It's more focused on MMOGs. The show runs from the 18th to the 21st, so it's just about ending over there.

Source: Spadow

There were vacancies for MapleStory 2, but so far, there hasn't been any news yet about that. Whatever.

A few games stole the show, notably Vindictus, which won the "Top Game" Award – not sure if that's just translated wrong, apparently it's the most prestigious one at the Expo. Right now there's currently 3 character classes in Vindictus (a grand total of 5), the 4th one, Karok/Kalok, was introduced!

He's a big, friendly giant, who's part monster-butt kicking badass, and half gentle creature.

Yeah. Real badass.

NEXON went as far as to hire a huge giant to cosplay as the guy.

I don't know if I'm in awe at how well he's dressed, or just semi-repulsed by the fact that he roared while swinging around his pillar. It was awkward to look at.

'course, NEXON wasn't the only company at the show, we also saw some new awesome MMORPGs being introduced, one of the major ones being NCSoft's Blade and Soul, which really looks like Vindictus, but more … fantasy like? It's sort of a combination of WoW and Vindictus if you ask me.

The full trailer's almost 12 minutes long, but it is certainly interesting.

Will definitely try it if it comes to the United States. >_>

Some mainstream MMOs were there – you ever heard of Cabal? Yeah, well, Cabal IIs in the works, and it's developed with CryEngine 3.

For you non-gamers out there, CryEngine 3 is the successor of CryEngine 2, the same engine used to Develop Crysis.

And this is a typical map that's rendered using said engine:

Now, since there wasn't an official trailer or anything, you can't really spot it in the next video, but that's an introduction to Cabal II. Unfortunately, Cabal II will probably employ a subscription model, so I'm not playing that. It MIGHT change though, Lord of the Rings online recently switched to the F2P model, apparently it's becoming ever more popular, and a lot of companies are catching on.

There were also a few other MMOs that were introduced like a MMORTS that uses the Three Kingdoms/Worlds (Chinese classic) setting, and some more news on Social features of TERA, which was an MMO that was introduced at GDC.

To be honest, it looks like it's an action RPG that sorta looks like Final Fantasy. Don't know if I can get behind that or not – never liked the FF franchise.

I'm still waiting on MapleStory 2 and Mabinogi 2 news. ;-; Those are two games that I really do want to try at one point.

Oh yeah.

^- This has become my new obsession. 😀 If you couldn't tell.

SUDDEN BLOG END