After a fruitful soft-launch period (judging from the improvements), Industrial Toys’ Midnight Star: Renegade, the follow-up to the very entertaining Midnight Star (Free), is ready to launch on August 11th. As we’ve talked about in the past, Midnight Star was a very fun shooter build around an entertaining story by author John Scalzi and with competitive play at its core. The game was loads of fun, and I spent quite some time on it. What some players disliked, though, was the fact that it was on rails, a concession by the developers at they tried to make a shooter that would work well on mobile.
In Midnight Star: Renegade, the developers decided to add the ability to move around more freely – albeit still using a mobile-friendly way to do so – and to focus on quick, frantic levels rather than the long, story-driven ones of Midnight Star. The result is a fun mobile shooter that lets you jump in, play a few levels quickly, and then jump out. You’ll use loot to improve various parts of your weapon and armor, and take on many other players in daily, weekly, and monthly challenges. If you have a competitive streak and you like shooters, this one is definitely for you.
That's a shame, I was going to pick this game up, but if it has all the 'typical' F2P stuff now, I'll pass.
If it's become the norm, we have only ourselves to blame. And as the App Store lowers restrictions on the perfidious "subscription" model, we deserve nothing less than self flagellation with accompanying "shame bell" proclamations.
I've definitely spent WAY more on premium games than any IAP in F2P games. So, I don't blame myself. ;) But all those people who'd rather not spend money upfront to only end up spending money when they hit the pay walls...
I think it's a bit of a false narrative to imply we're all complicit in this act without adding the stipulation that some are clearly more complicit in the destruction of our economy (which echoes itself in many if not all walks of life, specifically in this case, the mobile gaming economy) for their own personal gain than others. Much like in many freeps (typically ones people hate because it ruins the narrative of equality and probably reminds us more of the crappy real world situation we're currently trying to escape from), whales are more likely to win. Self-flagellation of the masses would probably be less effective than education and simply making sure that the justice system/government stays by and for the people (see also: Goodneighbor) and can't be subverted via in-app-purchase and corporate tax evasion.
Too bad, Pass for me too
There's a LOT you can do without ever being close to being stuck behind a paywall. Just give it a try. ;)
I played this for months and have some gripes but any paywall shenanigans is not one of them. It's a very generous game.
Well put, Eli. No matter how normal these mechanics become, they don't give me that nostalgic feeling. But maybe they will for kids 20 years from now when we're renting seconds/minutes of gameplay time from developers.
I only spend money on premium, on free to play I don't invest a dime out of principle.
Most good free to play games (including this one) you can play without spending any money.
Ya, the game for me also becomes how not to pay, paying outside currency to gain any advantage over a fellow gamer seems like cheating (and having to pay feels like poor/deceptive game design). It's also probably why I prefer single players and Hard (Up) Mode. There's a certain amount of control you give up when you don't "own" the full experience and having a digital salesman come round continually trying to get me to up my ante or clue me in to a limited time offer and it just puts me off. It's like commercial breaks during a TV movie (which nowadays also means the movie is sometimes edited for time or they do that thing where it's sped up slightly and it makes me physically ill. TV movies used to be watchable).
I've been playing it for a while and I completely agree - it's a fun and well produced game which is spoiled but not ruined by every cliche of the FTP puzzler going.
The battles look pretty cool too ;(...
Oh yeah. Dungeon Raid. I totally forgot about that one. Redownloading.