Who doesn’t love giant, dual-wielding, mechanized, robots? Exteel is loaded with mechanized warfare. The instant I held down both mouse buttons, I laughed loudly. Gleefully I held down the triggers, firing rounds into a crate. But wait, there’s more! In Exteel, you get to fight against other giant robots!
“How much would you pay for such an entertaining experience? Exteel is not $49.99. It’s not $29.99. It’s not even $19.99. Through the beauty of Internet distribution and alternative pricing models, Exteel is yours – FREE!”
Exteel reminds me of one of those infomercials. Here’s this seemingly amazing product – at an amazing price – so where’s the catch? Has NCsoft gone mad? Why would they give away Exteel for free? With the availability of open beta, I decided to check things out.
The copyright date was the first thing that caught my eyes. It’s 2005. If you’re looking for a game to test your new GeForce 8800 GT Graphics Processor, this is not it. Exteel looks good, but it’s not cutting edge. Even at maximum settings, the visual quality feels about 3-4 years old. That’s actually good news for players with older hardware. The minimum system requirements are fairly low: Windows 2000/XP, AMD Athlon 800 MHz or Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB available HDD space, GeForce Series 4 video card, 16-bit sound card, Broadband Internet connection, Keyboard and mouse.
A good game doesn’t need to have an insane polygon count to impress me. It just has to be fun. I was somewhat disappointed by the graphics, but that was overshadowed by the simplistic interface and easy to use controls. Movement is based on the standard WASD / Mouse controls. With hardly any orientation at all, you can jump right in and start shooting things to pieces.
I played a few Last Stand games last night.. I’m addicted. The gameplay is great! Can’t wait for the clan features to be implemented
For a “free” game the developers did an amazing job!