The Game: Firefall…

The Developer: Red 5…

The Genre: MMORPG/Third Person Shooter

In my never ending quest as a cost effective gamer, I’m always on the look-out for a decent free to play title where the pay walls are either nonexistent or not very high…

I came across Firefall while searching for a free to play shooter. I was having ‘Destiny Envy’ as it had recently been released for everything BUT PC (I would have thought if it could shine on any platform, it would be the PC… but that’s for another time).

I had scoured YouTube for free to play games, and Firefall kept coming up in several Top X lists. The only thing keeping me from trying this game out, was the art style. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good cel shaded game, so long as it’s just that a good cel shaded game. Several times I’ve been pulled in by cartoony graphics only to be disappointed by weak development.

I eventually gave in and decided to try it. Worst case scenario, it wouldn’t cost me anything more than some space on my HDD.

After designing my character, I selected my starting Battleframe (the cool gear all the characters wear) which basically acts as your class, and determines your learned skills.

Battleframes include:

• Dreadnaught, your heavy gunner and walking tank.
• Assault, the mobile damage dealer.
• Biotech, the support and healing class
• Engineer, the handy gadget user, and
• Recon, the sniper class.

I went with Assault as it was considered the ‘balanced’ class. The signature weapon is a plasma cannon which has two modes of fire. The first being a single shot with an area of effect (AOE) and the second having a shotgun type spread shot, which reminds me a lot of the Flak Cannon from Unreal Tournament.

Each Battleframe levels up individually, and has their own unique set of skills

I learned a few nifty skills in the Assault class. The first is a movement skills which gives me a huge boost of speed allowing me to cover a good distance in a few seconds, great for getting out of undesirable situations. Second is a ground stomp type of move, which has an area of effect, that both damages and pushes enemies back, great for when I get overrun by mobs (enemies). The other is a damage buff that lasts a short amount of time. All learned skills have their own cool down times (a short duration you must wait before you can use the skill again) and I’ve found all of them to be quite useful.

Nothing seemed new with this fairly basic archetypes neither did the story… the basic premise is this; There’s aliens trying to claim earth as their own, you’re a heavily armored mercenary, and it’s your job to blow them all away, but hey… if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right?

My Character… I’m so cool…

After completing the obligatory tutorial quest, I ventured into the open world, where I was able to accept missions via a job board… as well as other random missions I could encounter in the field. To my surprise this game features fully voice acted quest givers! Granted some of the dialogue can be nothing short of campy, I found it to be part of the game’s charm. I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of a Saturday morning cartoon from the mid 90’s… and that’s a good thing.

While on the subject of sound, the music in this game is spectacular! Michael Bross did an amazing job coming up with the soundtrack to this game, which I feel only adds to the games grand scale, and brings this world to life.

Check out his music from the game:

I’ve been playing this game (casually) for a few months now, and overall I really like it! One concern of mine was the dreaded paywall. I found that this wasn’t something I ran into in Firefall. While there is a cash shop, where I can buy cosmetic items and color schemes for my battleframe… all of these things can be bought with in game currency that is earned from killing mobs.

If you enjoy Third Person Shooters, MMORPGs and don’t mind cartoony graphics, and occasionally campy dialogue… then give this game a shot!

---

The rights for all music and game content belong to their respective owners.