Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Another sporty MMO? Well at least Smash Online is just tennis, so it’s only partially a rival to quite-good-tennis sports MMO Empire Of Sports, which is also in beta now. Can the super-cute Korean new kid on the block also lay claim to the “Quite Good Tennis” crown? We’ll have a bit of a test and let you know. Or you can just sign up to both betas yourself, of course.

Eurogamer publishes my preview of Empire of Sports from the same trip Jim described here. Being a preview, I talk about the game a wee bit more, starting like this…

You knew that, eventually, it was coming. Perhaps the only surprise is that it came from a relatively obscure French team rather than one of the mega-publishers. You’d have thought that – say – Electronic Arts would have figured that getting paid twelve times a year may be a better bet than getting paid once for an update. But no. It’s developers F4 – in a joint venture with the financial muscle of Sports Marketing company Infronts – who have had a crack.

And then continuing happily along, as is my previewing-wont.

Remember when we talked about Empire of Sports, the upcoming athleticism-based MMO? No, of course you don’t. You never remember anything. Bet you’ve even forgotten when our birthdays are, haven’t you? You heartless monster.

Anyhoo, the beta’s just started. Yes, today. It’s happening right now. You’re missing it – hurry! Five sports are in there already – tennis, basketball, skiing, bobsleigh, track & field and bear-baiting – and this free closed trial is running until early next year. Limited places unfortunately, but mention Rock, Paper, Shotgun and you’re guaranteed to… have exactly the same odds of getting in as if you hadn’t. Where? Here.

So Gillen and I were invited to visit the offices of F4 in central Paris. F4 are making a sports MMO named Empire Of Sports. Consider it for a moment: a sports MMO. That’s right: no orcs, no elves, not even any spaceships – just healthy young folk wielding tennis bats, kicking foot-to-ball spheres, and pumping iron a world full of gymnasiums. It was clearly our duty to examine it, to question its creators and to have rabbit-based dinner in a popular Parisian brasserie.

Past the jump I self-indulgently ramble on about whatever came to mind while I was writing this up, look at why Empire Of Sports might just be the first generation of a new kind of MMO, and fail to make any worthwhile Amélie references. You’ll also not see the photos we took of our trip, because we forgot to take a camera with us. What we took instead were ‘brain photos’, which we don’t seem to have a USB cable for.
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