Massive Gaming launches in the Philippines; debuts with WAR INC and Mercenary Online

I attended the media launch of Massive Gaming, a new online gaming company in the Philippines. They’re here to introduce the next generation of online games which was spearheaded back in the day by Level Up, Mobius and e-Games. Massive Gaming is founded by two of my friends, Miguel and Deng Limon with a number of industry veterans including Anton Ojeda and popular GM’s (like GM Rei and GM Rhaine).

The company currently has two games in its cue — WAR INC, which is currently on open beta and Mercenary Online which will be launched this November. Both of these games are free to play despite being premium online titles. I say premium because WAR INC actually pokes fun at the Modern Warfare franchise (with the tagline “More Than Warfare”) while Mercenary Online runs on the popular Unreal Engine and actually resembles Gears of War.

I had the chance to boot up WAR INC and spent roughly 8 hours of total in-game time before writing this preview (OMG totally floored! In terms of hype, it’s rather comparable to the best bingo sites to play in). To compare WAR INC with a familiar title, it’s essentially the multiplayer aspect of Modern Warfare / Call of Duty. The leveling system, gun customization, recoil physics, map objectives and optional third person mode are all reminiscent of MW2 — a game that I spent more than 100 hours playing back in 2009. WAR INC stands out because simply put, it’s free to play. You can opt to top up for new unlocks which manifest in armor and weapon upgrades for your gun, but these are limited by a certain amount of time. In other words, you may opt to spend, say 120 credits for the flashlight attachment (used to blind opponents but also reveal your cover) and this can be used for 24 hours, 7 days or an entire month.

Game modes are pretty much staples — Conquest (control points), Saboteur (bomb planting) and Team Death Match. Killing enemies and completing objectives give you a certain amount of XP which can be used to unlock perks. You also gain some amount of in-game currency which can be used to unlock other items faster. But like many other freemium games, you can unlock everything by exchanging real life money for in-game currency. Since they’re on beta, there are a number of things that need to be addressed including spawn camping which is brought about by certain respawn areas on some maps that have a direct line of sight to an enemy sniper and the swear filters that still don’t work (so be warned).

I highly suggest you give WAR INC a try. Head on over to their website (http://warinc.ph/) to download the client. I suggest using their torrent seed because that’s the fastest way. You will also need to register for a free account on their website.

Follow them on Facebook:
[https://www.facebook.com/massivegaming.ph]
[WAR INC Philippines]