Fox's Review: Space Cowboy Online

[Fusion]

http://sco.gpotato.com

"Star Fox, but with all the elements of a Korean MMO."

With no need to pay attention to the story unless you want to, I'll go ahead and review this one since it's been eating my time alive and it REQUIRES a review, given how there I'm a Level 27 B-Gear & Level 18 I-Gear pilot (I have a second character).

Graphics: (9/10)
I don't know what year this game was made, the graphics look good in motion.  Every level is detailed well, every monster has nice bits of detail, and the Gears are what look the best.  I like the graphics on this one, not too flashy but not horrifically bad.  You can see things, plus the use of the 'fog' graphic method gets rid of having to use a skybox's lower half to cover for missing terrain.

Sound (10/10):

Every sound is crisp, clear, and as bright as day.  You'll be able to learn types of guns and types of missiles by just listening to the sounds they make.  While if you turn off the music, the sounds of your Gear's engine may drone on in your mind, they aren't loud enough to irritate.

Gameplay (8/10):

Here is where the game suffers a little.  Most of the game depends on grinding to the next level, doing missions here and there.  Especially around level 27.  Stocking up on good weapons and using the right skills will help this go by a little faster, as well as doing the standard missions & sidestory missions aside from just the scenario missions.

The game involves putting together your gear's weaponry in a combo you know will last you a while and will also smash the enemy into the ground.  Most of the hits you'll make will probably be one 'miss' after another (which just gets annoying, because even with my I-Gear, whose attack stat is in the 50s, I still miss my target about 7 times before I hit it for 20 damage.), which is why it's better to go after it with missiles AND guns.  Rapid fire weapons work a lot better at picking away enemies than the stronger type weapons, which may be slow.  Sometimes, missiles you fire are so slow they never catch up to the enemy, or just last such a short time and never reach the target.  That's why it's good to use missiles that both have a hefty supply and also are single-locks.  You'll usually be focusing on one target alone.

The last thing are the big BCU vs. ANI wars, which can turn really epic really fast.  Even if you're a low level you can participate in these matches.  Every person counts, and who knows, you might get lucky and shoot down an enemy's ace.  I have, got myself a Killmark of Veteran I won't be able to use until I'm a level 70-ish Gear.