If
you take the core concept behind Pokémon and traditional
MMO gameplay elements then throw them in a blender, chances are you
might get something resembling the awesome Chokémon quests
from the EverQuest
2: Rise of Kunark expansion.
Add in a dash of style="font-style: italic;">The Sims
and a heavy helping of turn-based fighting however, and the net result
will be something altogether different than your average MMO burrito.
Surely I’m not the only gamer out there who likes to name
their burritos (I’m not… right?) so I’m
going to call this one href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1152"
target="_blank"> style="font-style: italic;">Freaky Creatures!



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Players
get to select a theme song for each of their creatures - how cool is
that?

Freaky
Creatures (FC) is a new game
being developed by Abandon Interactive Entertainment. Some of you may
be familiar with Abandon Interactive, as the company previously played
a pivotal role in funding and co-publishing Mythic
Entertainment’s href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/39"
target="_blank"> style="font-style: italic;">Dark Age of Camelot
prior to Mythic being swallowed up by the hungry, hungry publishing
hippo otherwise known as Electronic Arts. While DAoC can be described
as having roots in more traditional, fantasy-based MMO gameplay,
Abandon decided to take an altogether different approach with style="font-style: italic;">Freaky Creatures
while still retaining a core focus on competition.



Earlier this month FC href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/64688" target="_blank">opened
up its beta to the general
public. After seeing some of FC’s stylized visuals, which I
could only describe as being a sci-fi cartoon ride through Wonderland,
I was excited to download the client and take the game for a virtual
spin. What I found on the other side of the FC looking glass is a
highly addictive little game that should offer something for gamers of
all ages, especially anyone who enjoys the action of fighting games but
prefers a slower, turn-based approach.



Although the client is relatively small, a handy little button on the
installer will take you to a page at the official FC website that
offers a collection of flash based mini-games to play while you wait. I
thought this was a nice touch as it gives you something fun to do
rather than sit and watch a progress bar, fingers crossed that there
won’t be a mega-patch of doom waiting for you on the other
end. This isn’t an entirely new concept, but I’ve
always wondered why developers opt for the standard screenshot
slideshow rather than something more interactive during the sometimes
lengthy set-up process. For example, imagine how cool it would be if
you could run through character creation while a game client installs
so that you’d be ready to step directly into the game world
as soon as you hit the big, shiny “PLAY” button?



Speaking of character creation, the process in FC may not be the most
robust that I’ve ever seen, but there’s a lot of
interesting options to consider straight out of the gate. Rather than
creating a human avatar, players (referred to as
‘trainers’) will go about selecting a basic
creature type and then customizing it to their liking. While
there’s no sliders to adjust the base build of the creature,
you are able to choose a color scheme for them before adding in various
parts such as wings, horns or tails that not only help you create a
creature that looks pretty cool, but will also determine what type of
attacks you can do with various body parts.



At this point I almost found myself wishing I could run through the
short gameplay tutorial prior to creating my first creature, as
assigning various body parts left me feeling a little bit in the dark
as to what effect they might have on gameplay even though each one will
influence what type or how much damage your creature can do. You can
easily end up with a fairly gimped creature if you’re not
careful to select a good combination of offensive and defensive parts,
and mix up the types of attacks you can use, though thankfully
throughout the course of gameplay you’ll be gaining new parts
you can swap out between matches similar to how you’d equip a
character in most MMOs, so a lot of your initial choices
aren’t permanent.

Freaky
Creatures exists primarily as
a series of 3D lobbies where you can either start matches with other
players, or join those already in progress as a spectator. The lobby
areas that I’ve seen so far are fairly small, but I never had
any problem getting into matches. In fact, the moment I first logged in
I was quickly bombarded with match offers, so I dove directly into
combat with my creature that looked a bit like a Warlock’s
succubus in WoW who’s head was about to explode. With an
electric sword in one hand and a poison blaster in the other, I was
ready to rumble!

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Lairs
add another layer of depth to the Freaky Creatures experience

Matches are pretty straight forward, with each player deciding which
attack type to use at the start of a turn by hitting a UI button to
select a specific body part. Before the attacks are executed,
you’ll also have a chance to use one of your creature skills
to either augment your own attack, or react to the damage type being
used by your opponent. Rather than being directly player-controlled,
the creatures act out the battle while you plan your next set of
attacks and hope that you don’t lose too many hitpoints.
Reducing your opponent’s hitpoints to zero wins the match, at
which point you’ll earn some experience as well as gaining
one of their skills to use in future matches.



That may sound pretty basic, and in the beginning it can be. As you
progress it opens up more options for your creatures which can really
up the strategic aspects of a match. There’s also
leaderboards that track things like wins and losses, and is based on
the trainer’s performance rather than that of an individual
creature they use.



Think of Freaky
Creatures as a strange
Pokémon trip set in space, with the addition of customizable
lairs that are a cross between EQ2-style player housing and a Sims
mini-game. Lairs can act both as a social hub as well as a place to do
things like tickle your creature until it passes out from exhaustion.
You can also feed them all sorts of bizarre foods from a menu that
changes daily, many of which your creatures will refuse to eat
depending on which flavor of slugs they prefer. The only thing really
missing from giving this aspect of FC the full Sims treatment is the
lack of a bathroom for your creature to constantly nag you about
needing to use. I’ve read that your creatures will do better
or worse during matches depending on how you treat them in their lair,
but so far I haven’t really noticed any difference whether I
tickled my creature using the interactive mouse controls that leave you
feeling a bit… wrong, and the times I ignored it completely
until it fell asleep.



All things considered, style="font-style: italic;">Freaky Creatures
is an interesting if not very complex game. Thanks to a cleaver
approach to marketing, the title should appeal to a younger audience
that enjoys the idea of owning a physical version of the creatures they
use in game. Starter packs include figures and collectible cards for
two creature types, while single creature booster packs will help round
out your collection of beasts.



Calling Freaky
Creatures an MMO is a bit of
a stretch in some areas, but if you’re looking for a
light-hearted fighting game that’s high on style and strategy
over the cheap tactics of action-based fighting games, FC might be
right up your alley!