GameSpy's Free Agent is your advance recon into the world of free-to-play games. His mission: jump into a free game every week and put in some hours to see how much fun can be had without spending a cent, then try out some paid items to see if they're worth the asking price. This week, he relives his fond childhood memories of Toy Story -- except, you know, with guns -- in MicroVolts (download it here). But does his wallet stay mint-in-box, or does it get torn limb-from-limb and gnawed on by an overexcited puppy?
No Money Down
It's about as simple and candy coated as shooters come.
MicroVolts kicked off by forcibly running me (by which I mean an action figure of a giggly Japanese schoolgirl) through an in-depth tutorial that -- in excruciating detail -- explained to me such essential skills as switching weapons, jumping, and how to walk forward. I thought for certain that it was going to end with a pass-or-fail test over the difference between breathing and drowning. Mercifully, however, after some harassment about practice bot matches, I finally got to dive into the deep end myself. Really, though, that initial experience was pretty indicative of MicroVolts as a whole. It's about as simple and candy coated as shooters come, so it's not much of a surprise that it expects the same of its players. I'm pretty sure she missed.
That's not entirely bad, either. I leaped into my first plastic-blasting match and immediately felt competitive. I mean, I've gone through these motions with my eyes closed before -- just not in a child's playroom or while taking cover behind chess pieces that are twice my size. And, for what it's worth, I was immediately able to access an impressive number of inventive levels along those lines. I sniped from inside coffee cups, darted and dodged between office supplies, and made a last stand fit for its own war movie while a puppy that could've easily swallowed me whole looked on in the background. Granted, some of those levels were horrifically designed (first team to spawn-camp the other wins in brutal fashion, basically), but -- by and large -- they got the job done.
I sniped from inside coffee cups and darted and dodged between office supplies.
Between that and a standard array of match types like team deathmatch, capture the battery, elimination, and a couple less traditional (though not terribly entertaining) modes like zombie, I had a veritable all-I-could-eat buffet on my plate without spending a dime. Moreover, a relatively breezy leveling system let me replace my pea-sized pea-shooters with some slightly heavier weaponry at level five -- which only took a couple hours to reach."Yes, yesssss. Good. Dance, pitiful puppets. Dance into your graves" -- a puppy.
Unfortunately, on the progression side of things there really wasn't much to look forward to. Each weapon type (melee, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper, gattling gun, rocket launcher, and grenade launcher) only had three XP-based alternatives in the store. So it wasn't until I hit level 10 that I could add some more fresh blood to my arsenal. And though I didn't get there, level 15 would've been my next and final tier. On the upside, even higher-level weapons generally came with sizable stat drawbacks, so it generally wasn't a matter of rising through the ranks and gaining pure power. Well, that is, until I started spending real money.
Insert Coin
Browsing through MicroVolts' item shop, I was largely OK with what I saw. Again, real-money-only guns have their ups and downs -- just like their in-game-currency-based counterparts. Well, except two. Both shotgun and sniper have one buyable apiece that was out-and-out better -- if only slightly -- than their respective level 15 earnables. So, of course, I bought the shotgun for about $6. Then I upgraded its power slightly to match its formidable fire rate and charged into battle.
Seriously, is that blood? Do action figures bleed? I demand a physiology lesson!
I didn't feel like some kind of tiny, meticulously articulated demigod all the time, but gosh, my shiny new ADV-Bombard packed a serious wallop. That is to say, playing sloppily still got me reduced to an equally sloppy mess of arms, legs, and some sort of strange blue action figure blood, but when I was on, I was on. During my first match using it, my team was pinned down at our starting point (remember what I said about camping?), so I decided I was fed up and sprinted off into a maze of computer monitors. An enemy turned a corner at the same time as me. We both fired. He died in one shot; I didn't. I kept moving forward and spotted two more in an open area near a workplace-friendly desk plant. Two shots downed one, and the other -- weakened from a different shootout -- succumbed to a single spray.
I was still allowed on the Beginner server with a weapon tailor-made to steamroll even the best of the best.
Admittedly, things didn't always go quite so smoothly, but my shotgun became my Ace in the hole. If I was tired of having my bite-sized head blown to even smaller bits, ol' shotty could usually turn the tide. More disturbingly, I first purchased it when I was level five. This meant I was still allowed on the Beginner server with a weapon tailor-made to steamroll even the best of the best. Of course, I dutifully tested it for the sake of this column -- and I might have cackled maniacally, like, once or twice -- but it felt pretty icky, all things considered. You know, this played out very differently in my head.
Also, a note about the upgrade system: It requires "energy," which can be purchased with either currency or slowly accrued in battle. However, even after I filled my energy bar, there was no guarantee the stat boost would be successful. After three tries -- and three complete depletions of my energy bar -- I finally got one congratulatory message. Refilling energy the old-fashioned way, though, takes upward of an hour or so, and meter-refilling batteries cost nearly $7 a pop. So, with each failure, I was watching pretty hefty chunks of time and money circle the drain. Superglue, meanwhile, guarantees success -- for the hilariously unreasonable price of $12. So, no matter how you slice it, the upgrade system's basically terrible.
Free or Flee?
MicroVolts is a largely competent but unspectacular shooter. Much like the action figures it so prominently features, it's a simple, no-frills toy compared to other shooters' easily broken collector's items. And while there are some definite balance issues brought about by a few microtransaction-based weapons that are flat-out better than their earnable counterparts, I simply can't recommend spending money on this one. If you're a semi-respectable shooter player, you'll have roughly the same experience either way. So take it for a spin if you're looking for quick, mindless non-murder. But don't expect much beyond that.