Facebook FPS: UberStrike brings gunslinging action to social networks

UberStrike
While browser first-person shooters (FPS) like Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes have been around for a while now, we've patiently awaited the day for our favorite modern American past time to come to Facebook: shooting things. South Korean developer Cmune has brought its browser FPS game, UberStrike, to Facebook. And it is, for lack of a better a word, awesome. Playing much like commonly known games such as Quake, UberStrike brings the traditional online FPS to the world of social games in a huge way.

Take a look behind the break for more about this shooter on Facebook.
Character Creation
For those familiar with how FPS games work, there won't be much different here than the novelty of having one on Facebook. But those new to genre will learn best through trial and error. Installing UberStrike requires players to download a one-time Java program to help run the game. Once inside the game, you'll find yourself in Character Creation where you're given a few options to customize your avatar such as skin tone, clothing color and hair color. (But only male avatars are available, what gives?) After that's through, the lobby awaits, which serves as the game's live chat room as well. This is where players can organize games together and buy Credits (the game's paid currency) bundles.

More importantly, this is also where you'll access games to play. Clicking the "Play" button will take you to a list of servers that are located in various parts of the world by region. It's best to choose a server closest to where you live to ensure the best play experience. For instance, I live on the East Coast, so choosing a West Coast server would still be playable, though I might suffer from serious lag and control issues. After choosing a server, you'll be presented with a list of games currently playing on that server.

Gameplay
Fortunately, the games are separated by map, player number and gameplay mode. There are currently only two gameplay modes available: Death Match and Team Death Match. In other words, you can kill everyone around you or kill everyone on opposing teams. Choose a game (or create your own) and you'll assume control of your character and get to the meat and potatoes of UberStrike.

Gameplay is simple enough, control movement using a combination of the WASD keys and the mouse to aim. Clicking the left mouse button fires and keys 1 through 5 cycle through weapons. The aim of the game is rack up as many kills as possible while staying alive, so be sure to pick up as many armor and health packs as possible. The balance between attacking other players and staying alive by collecting armor and health makes for a Facebook gaming experience that is sure to keep you on your toes.

Death Scene
As for visuals, this game looks impressive for being on a platform that normally only runs Flash games and not much else. Uberstrike operates in full, though minimally detailed, 3D with even a physics engine that affects the flight of projectiles and, how should we say, bodies. The graphics can be scaled for performance or looks through the Options menu where you can also remap controls and even sync a game controller for the console FPS crowd.

However, we're put off by just one thing: The Shop. Acquiring new weapons is far different than in other FPS games where they're found on the ground. Using Credits, players can buy licenses for more advanced weapons. The keyword here is "license." Buying a weapon or other enhancement only grants access to the item for a certain time period. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so expensive. To paint a better picture, buying, say, a Force Cannon for one week's use costs 2,184 Credits currently. However, that's about $4 for an item that's only going to last you a week as opposed to other games where that would be a one-time purchase.

While there are items and weapons available for coins, they'll never be as powerful as the paid items. Unfortunately, that's the current state of social gaming and it's unlikely to change for some time. That being said, UberStrike is a game that could get FPS fans hooked almost instantly and might even make some FPS players out of you.

Play UberStrike on Facebook Now >

Keep your virtual computer virus free with VirusWars on Facebook

Just today, the folks at BitDefender launched a computer themed tower-defense title on Facebook called VirusWars. The game has a clever premise - you are in charge of protecting the inner workings of your computer system. It's up to you to place defense systems on your motherboard and other various computer hardware in order to keep out all manner of nasty things, from malware and spyware to viruses and even spam.

The game's tower defense layout will be incredibly familiar to those who have played even one other game in the genre. You'll be allowed to choose a level set to start on, with each level giving you a different amount of coins to start with. You'll be able to spend those coins on defensive items, including multiple varieties of turret. These turrets come in different colors and with different stats, with the more powerful options obviously costing more coins to place. That is, you'll be able to choose from a whole host of different stat configurations, from those turrets that shoot fast, but are weak, to those that shoot slowly, but can dominate most anything that enters their path.

Meet us behind the break to see how you'll be able to put your strategy to use to defeat the evil viruses.
You'll be able to see the standard path that all enemies will walk down when you are placing your defensive units. If you can afford it, you'd of course want to place multiple units along each path, in positions where they will be able to reach the most number of viruses before they can attack your system's "health." Once you believe you're ready to face enemies, you can click on the "Send Wave" button to set the gameplay into action.

From here, you can either pause the action, or you can speed it up, for times when you know you'll win and don't need to watch things play out. The game doesn't pause if you open up the shop, but you are allowed to do so and to place new defensive units on the fly. For each enemy you defeat, you'll earn a small amount of coins, which can then be spent to either upgrade your current units to become more powerful, or simply buy additional units from the store.

For each virus that escapes your defenses, and makes it to the "core," you'll lose a bit of health. Depending on the level pack you're playing, you may have to take on 50 waves or more before you've competed the round. You'll be able to track your overall score for a particular level by keeping an eye on the neighbor bar at the bottom of the screen. You can also check out your individual stats (how many kills you've made in total across all of the five current levels), and your team stats (all users choose from one of four teams to join) in order to make sure that you're doing your part in the group.

All told, VirusWars appears to be a pretty solid, if a bit shallow take on the tower defense genre. With a small gameplay area, it's unlikely that most users would get overwhelmed with the placement of their defenses, opening this game up to many more players - especially those that may not be seasoned veterans with the gameplay formula.