S4 League Review

Listening to: Voile the Magic Library

It's once again been a long since I wrote my last blog o_O. Today I decided to do something more productive, and this time I'll try to put more effort into this blog.

Real Life:
This recent week I've been having my IB mocks and everything seems going smoothly. I only have to come to school whenever I have my exams and my next exam is within next week, so I can stay home until one week – but ofcourse this means I should to make good use of my time D: (which I'm not very good at doing )
Well.. anyways!

Gaming:
One day when I was reading some manga on onemanga.com I noticed this ad showing some flashy gameplay on this game called 'S4 League'.

It looked sorta interesting so I decided to check it out. When I started playing I really got into it so I invited some friends to join. S4 league is a SCI-FI first person shooter, if anyone is interested here's a review of it on mmohubs
Even though there's the mmohubs review I'll force you to listen to my personal impressions of S4 league anyhow

-S4 League (Europe) Review-

Gameplay: 8/10

S4 League is a Korean-based FPS. I'm playing on a European S4 League hosted by alaplaya.net so some of features like some weapons, maps, and modes aren't released yet. S4 league is very similar to Gunz, although it is not as competitive, and is IMO somewhat more relaxing to play. The concept in S4 League is that there are two different team playing modes. There's no 'free-for-all':

DM (Deathmatch): Similar to any FPS, where you try to eliminate the opposing team and try to survive without getting killed too much.
TD (Touchdown): A bit similar to Halo's concept of oddball however it is where your team have to run to the centre of the map, take the fumbi (the ball), and then take the fumbi to the enemy base without getting killed in process. While carrying the fumbi, your SP (mana) to run faster/perform dodges/ make wall jumps, will drain so you have to be careful because carrying the fumbi makes you highly vulnerable, and if you get killed while carrying the fumbi, the fumbi will drop and someone else can take it.
S4 League effectively utilizes the concept of teamplay because it's almost impossible to solo a game on your own, (ESPECIALLY IN TD) because for example if a whole team tries to rush and no one is left to defend then if they happened to get all massacred then their base is vulnerable for anyone from the opposing team to make a touchdown. This is why you can strategically plan the classes for different players like: strikers, defenders, tanks, invaders, backers, healers, and assassins. These aren't classes as in where you need requirements to become it, no, it's just how you USE your weapons in the battlefield makes you become one of these specific 'classes'.
Many TD where I played, people often have the tendency to play full-offensive making their base defence vulnerable. On the other hand if a team is full-defensive then there wouldn't be much progress and the game would become boring. Hence, a good team is a team with good offense and defence.

Graphics 8/10:
The graphics are smooth, pretty eye-pleasing, and the clothes have their touch of style. I haven't noticed any choppy nor significantly bad graphics in S4.

Items: 8/10

Clothes:
In beginning, clothes aren't really necessary because they don't really make you strong or anything, they only make you look more 'stylish' . The only ones which increase your strength are the ones you pay by cash ._.
Weapons:
The weapons vary from plastic spoons to nuclear bombs. Just kidding, IMO there are a sufficient variety of weapons in S4, and none of these weapons need additional ammo and they can reload infinitely. For the names of the different weapons: there's the semi-rifle (medium long-range), submachine gun (medium close-range), hand gun (light close range), revolver (equivalent of a shotgun), Heavy machine gun (heavy medium range), cannonade (chargeable splash sniper), rail gun (chargeable sniper), plasma sword (light melee), storm bat (heavy melee), counter sword (Heavy anti- melee), mind shock (sends bolts that can hit an enemy standing behind obstacles), mind energy (close range healer), sentry gun (immobile, automatic turret), and finally sentinel (immobile, automatic close-range stunner and damager)
People often complain about how some weapons are imbalanced because people overuse them (such as counter sword, heavy machine gun, or storm bat because people spam its strong attacks), however they overlook the fact that all weapons have their weaknesses and can be countered one way or another. I personally find the weapons pretty much balanced.

Skills:
In S4, as being able to hold 4 different items during fighting; you can hold different 3 weapons, and one skill. Skills consume your SP but are pretty handy and useful for various situations. I won't go in depth into this section otherwise this is too long. However, there's the: anchor, invisibility, block, 30+ health (passive), 40+ SP(passive), detect, fly, bind, and shield.
The biggest annoyance with items is that if you lose many matches, your items, weapons, and skills duration bar will go down, and when it reaches to 0 you're unable to use it unless you waste your money to repair it -_-.

Sounds and music: 7.5/10
The music varies from map to map. Apparently all of the S4 League's BGM was made by some DJ called MC Mike B who composed them. Here's two of my favorites. Supersonic (Map: Neden 1) you could say is the signature song for S4 League since it says S4 League in its lyrics o_o. NB Power (Map: Circle) Some people might disagree with me saying this but I think the music from S4 League are one of the best, and original BGMs I heard among many MMOs . The reason some people might not like the BGMs is because since the song loops throughout the game it might get onto your nerves sometimes (but then you can turn off the BGM ofcourse)

Overall: 8/10

Overall presently within the European S4 League, there can be many improvements made to improve the gameplay. In comparison to the original Korean S4 League, the European S4 League is apparently a shithole. There are many missing features such as arcade mode and chaser, maps, and weapons. The duration thing is apparently only added in EU S4 League so people complain about that too. However by the game itself, I personally don't find the negative aspects too bad, so if you live in Europe and aren't bothered by the drawbacks, S4 League is a FPS worth a try :).

Note: I'm also aware that some of you have already played S4 and quit because of the lag. If you're living outside Europe , gameplay is likely to be laggier than those who live within Europe.