Alliance of Valiant Arms – PC – Preview


When you are invited into a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), you can
never be certain just what is in store. Now advance that with the notion of
missions (in addition to your standard array of deathmatch modes) in a
modern warfare setting, and you begin to define what makes up Alliance of
Valiant Arms.


To be absolutely fair, AVA (as it is known for short) is not an entirely new
concept. Back in February of 2007, K2Network launched

War Rock,
a map-based war game that sported the same general concepts in
that you fought on enclosed maps with objectives well defined. But AVA looks to
up the ante just a touch.   


The idea is a simple one on the surface. Give players a nice selection of maps,
give them three core builds to pick from (such as a sniper, a rifle man and
point man) and then let them fight it out. The game has just entered closed
beta, but GameZone was invited in for a media event a couple of days ago and
found the server lag almost non-existent, the action fast-paced and the game’s
graphics very well handled.


The game does not stray overly far from what one would expect of a shooter. You
can shop for upgrades for your weapons, customize them to suit your build and
some of the items will add buffs to your weapon. The weapon itself has seven
attribute areas – damage, range, accuracy, stability, mobility, spray, and ammo.
Now if you have gone down the path of sniper, you can buy a weapon, like the
SV98, and then go into the customize mode to see what items might be available
to buy to upgrade it. For example, you can buy a precision scope for 800 coins –
this will add 5 to the damage, 3 to the range, 1 to the accuracy but -3 to
stability.



Of course you can swap out weapons on the battlefield and if you die, you can
change classes at the respawn. Thus it behooves players to plan ahead and buy
weapons for every eventuality. You might start as a sniper but if your online
team is all snipers, it might be a tough go if you are in the mission of
escorting a tank through narrow streets. In order for that tank to run and stay
functional, a player has to remain near it. You can also mount the top turret
gun in the tank, but that makes you a sitting duck for a … well, a sniper.


You can also upgrade your armor, and even buy upgrades that allow you to carry
more than one grenade into battle.


The game also keeps track of your online progress, showing how many wins you
have been part of as well as tallying up your experience points en route to an
officer ranking. The folks behind the title (ijji and REDDUCK) have big plans
for the title, including hosting a tourney in November with the winner earning a
trip to Korea to represent the U.S. in an international tourney.


The game modes were limited to just a few in the beta, but there were quite a
number of players engaged on different maps.


During the course of the media event, the bullets were flying fast and furious
and a nice range of the modes were shown off. There are even modes that won’t
allow players to respawn and dive back into the fight if they are killed.
Imagine the embarrassment of not knowing that, running forward to find the enemy
and finding a group of them waiting around the bend; dying within 30 seconds of
the fight is a bit humiliating.


Maps do help players with navigation and finding the enemy.


The graphics and sound are both very nicely done. The game was launched at
1920×1080 and the definition in the environments, as well as in the characters,
was very nice.


AVA is not reinventing the FPS MPOG genre, but it is offering a solid gaming
experience.