Sudden Attack SEA game review.

ASIASOFT — you may ­recognise them as the publishers of MMO games like MapleStory and Cabal Online — recently gave members of the press an advance peek at Sudden Attack, an FPS reminiscent of the classic Counter-Strike.

One significant difference between Sudden Attack and most FPS games, however, is that it’s free to play. The game is touted as “Korea’s No. 1 FPS Online Game,” but I was more interested to know whether it’s fun, and whether it’s better than spending an afternoon cooped up in the office (Short answer: yes and yes.)

Four teams of five players — consisting of members from Malaysian and Singaporean media groups — spent the better half of a recent Friday afternoon shooting each other in a friendly competition. We went through the usual fare of FPS gameplay, including two rounds of fast-paced team deathmatches and one round of bomb defusal.

Other game modes are available — including Property Defence (read: king of the hill-type gameplay) and Submission (battles with knives only) — but we didn’t get around to exploring them.

Before I proceed, I’d like to express my one gripe about the game. The press release claims that Sudden Attack is a “free-to-play FPS MMO.”

Free-to-play, check. FPS, check. But MMO? The Massively Multiplayer Online tag implies hundreds, perhaps thousands, of players playing in one persistent world simultaneously. Sure, you might find hundreds or thousands of players waiting to play with you in the lobby, but the maps generally only support two teams of 8 to 16 players. That’s basically standard fare when it comes to FPS.

Simply fun

Now that’s off my chest, I can tell you my impression of the game: It’s pretty fun. It doesn’t have superb, big-budget graphics like that of Half-Life 2, nor does it have gameplay “features” such as ­character classes or vehicles like that of the Battlefield series.

However, I found the simplicity of the gameplay to be surprisingly refreshing. It’s an FPS at its most basic — you have a gun, your ­opponents have a gun, and it’s probably in your best interest that you introduce them to your bullets before they do the same to you. No mucking about with who gets to pilot the tank, no chasing after power-ups, and no spending an entire minute trekking across a ridiculously large map to the next capture point.

Sudden Attack seems designed for fast, casual gameplay, with most games lasting only about 10 minutes. In fact, I couldn’t spend more than 20 seconds without shooting somebody, (oh, alright, I meant getting shot BY somebody,) and the short respawn times in the team deathmatches meant I was continuously on the battlefield delivering and/or receiving ­bullet-related fatalities.

Rental gear

The gameplay outside of matches is equally interesting from what I’ve seen. In addition to earning ­persistent ranks as you emerge victorious from games, you also earn “points” that act as the game’s currency.

With sufficient points, you can purchase new uniforms, establish clans and rent weapons. Read that properly: I said “rent.”

While you can purchase better weapons with your in-game points, they’ll only be available to you for a few days at a time. It’ll probably be in your best interest to maintain a fairly consistent level of gameplay.

While the game is free to play, AsiaSoft revealed that they’re exploring the option of allowing players to purchase points with real world cash. We’re still waiting to hear more details about that.

If you’re raring to give Sudden Attack a go, the good news is that AsiaSoft will be having its Close Beta phase from January 7 onwards. Heck, they’re even letting you try your hand at the game at selected cybercafes around the nation on the first weekend of the year (Jan 3-4).

By SHAUN A. NOORDIN

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WWW.SUDDENATTACKSEA.COM