Combat Arms. The Best Free First-Person Shooter?

 In the video game industry today, we look for a game with the best graphics and the best gameplay. There are some major contenders who bring home the bacon with a combination of both but there are many companies who are lacking it all.

Nexon America, a sister company to Nexon Korea, has released their latest game called Combat Arms. With many free games on their list, how can a small company who makes their money with item shops possibly make a game where it combines depth, action, and sheer fluidity to a game and still be free? No one knows the answer, nor is it ever asked and it shouldn't. Combat Arms definitely does deliver what all FPS gamers need and shows potential with where it can go.

Getting Started

You start the game with a basic setup. You choose how your soldier looks and then name him. Where it gets tricky is the weapons you start with. They consider the M16A1 Automatic rifle to be the weakest by today's standards and therefore offer it as its "free" weapon. You also start with standard military issue camo and a combat knife as well as some basic frag grenades.

As for now, customization is very limited but the developers have stated that you will be able to "purchase" looks in the future, which leads me to the best part. EVERY gun, grenade, armor vest, helmet, uniform, or anything else that can be used to punish your enemies will never EVER cost you any real life money. That's right. You can be just as powerful as the highest killer on the servers and never have spent a penny. The ingame money, known as GP, is what you use to buy your gear with and is only earned by winning matches. Depending on how many kills you get determines what place you come in on the leaderboards for that match and thus, determines how much experience and GP you earn.

Experience? Why is there experience points in an FPS? Actually, this is nothing new. In the Battlefield games, your soldier earns experience to unlock weapons and to earn rank. The same is true in Combat Arms. You earn rank to unlock certain weapons and gear. You also have to be a certain rank to join a clan and start one. This leaves an incentive to playing the game and really pushes the player to rank up instead of creating multiple accounts.

There is also a KDR (Kill/Death Ratio) which is available for all players to see. Naturally, the higher your KDR is, the better you look to other players, and believe it or not, determines whether opposing clans will fight you in clan matches or even play in the same match with you in normal matches. Rank does not determine how good a player is however. Rank is merely an indication on how much that player has played and there are definitely some people on there with a rank so high that it looks as if they have no life. Which is probably true.