One of the better browser based game, HAS issues though.

Banden

Ihve tried this game and I actually quite liked it, until i ran into some problems that pretty much ended my game...

The map looks like your basic boardgame, it has hexagonal tiles that you move around on. The game has like 4 factions that divide the map between them. The tiles have towns or cities or mining colonies and so on, these are your mission hubs. You level up by doing missions and fighting battles, and there are 3 different stats that you can improve, energy, stamina and hp. These are time based, so when you spend points you will regain them over time.

Thing is pretty simple, you spend energy to do missions or to heal, you use your stamina to fight battles. The missions are non-interactive, so you simply spend your points and when the bar reaches 100% your mission is complete, seems a little too simple. From the missions you get vehicles or buildings, like resource buildings or factory buildings. You can start a battle yourself or join one that is allready going on, fighting is as simplified as missions, its basicly just turnbased rolls. You have 3 choices, you have a regular attack, power attack and a heal so you press and you do a roll against the npc you are attacking and it loses a corresponding amount of hp, it does a roll against you and you lose hp likewise. You cant attack other players directly. Battles are basicly a 24 hour tug of war between players on either side, the more NPCs you kill the closer you get to victory. If you mange to sway the battle in your factions favour, that tile will be added to your territory. Thats basicly all there is to it. Thers a bunch of different vehicles you can use in combat, you can build these in your factories or you can buy them from a shop for the credits you earn from missions.

Now as with so many browser games, this is pretty much pay to win... which is pretty terrible. It would be so much better if there was a minimal subscription fee so that the playing field was level, but thats my opinion and it doesnt change no matter what game it is. The MT currency is called novel points and you start the game with 25, spending those is a no brainer, you need to buy an asset slot, you start the game with 3 asset slots and if you dont spend those points on a slot you are basicly stuck because 3 slots is not really enough to build much of anything. If you want to play the game at any length you will need even more than 4, can you say money grab? Considering that this is still in beta I find it rather silly that they are asking for your money to test a game thats not even released. I pointed this out when i started playing it, but it hasnt changed, they seem resigned to money grabbing. If it wasnt for the stupid payment model and the lack of starting slots this would definately be a fun sandbox-like game worth playing.

Btw the Genre is wrong, its actually scifi, reminds me a little of the firefly universe, which is kewl.