Space Cowboy Online

Freebie massively multiplayer role-playing games are quickly becoming a dime a dozen these days. Most of them follow a similar or identical premise: a medieval fantasy with a complete lack of an endgame boss or feature, and an insufferably boring and grinding period in which the player goes from a novice first level all the way up to something with some semblance of power. Often, revenue comes from obscenely unbalanced “unique” items that can be purchased for a few dollars off the game’s main site. In short, most free MMOs are simply World of Warcraft knockoffs. In this respect, if the gamer has played one title, they have played them all.

There is at least one break in this sleep-inducing trend, and it resides in MasangSoft’s Space Cowboy Online, a free Massively Multiplayer Online Shooter that offers the budget-minded gamer a unique experience and promises a good bang for the buck… or lack of one.

Boiled down to its basest of elements, Space Cowboy is like StarFox 64 in an MMO package. Players choose one of four “Gears”, each with their own specific advantages and disadvantages. The I-Gear is the conventional “fighter”: it’s quick, nimble, and can deliver quick crushing blows, but can’t really take much in the way of damage. The M-Gear is the medic class fighter: heavy, lumbering, but capable of taking a great deal of damage and repairing other units in the area. B-Gears are fighter-bombers: slow, can’t take much damage, but capable of dealing a tremendous amount. Then there are the A-Gears: glorified “flying tanks” with an incredible artillery range but fairly useless in a one-on-one battle without significant support (though they look cool). Each of the Gears are incredibly customizable, with options ranging from armor, shields, engines, weaponry (primary and secondary), and even color schemes.

The starting pilot starts in the early levels with an easy-to-use tutorial followed by a series of “mercenary” missions – missions that don’t place you in the service of any particular faction. These primarily lie within the realm of “kill X monsters” or “destroy X enemy aircraft” and represents the bulk of the early-level “grinding”.

The beauty of Space Cowboy Online is the fact that the grinding is actually enjoyable when compared with other MMOs out there. Because this is an action-oriented RPG, having to slay countless numbers of enemies isn’t a simple “point ‘n’ click” ordeal. The Gear is in constant motion, and killing an enemy equates effectively to dogfighting or bombing runs, something that the pilot must be concentrating on constantly. As such, the initial grind is a smooth, quick, and pleasant experience as the character develops by leveling and adding more and more upgrades to their particular Gear.

Player-vs-Player combat is readily available in any area of Space Cowboy – even in the tutorial areas. Personal duels are available via a simple key press, and upon entering zones, the player is given the opportunity to choose the type of area they’re entering – “safe” or “battle”. Safe zones disallow the ability to target other players except by requesting duels. Battle zones are potential free-for-alls, depending on the number of players in the zone.

The controls are incredibly intuitive, and are easy to pick up even for the most novice of shooter players or RPG fanatics. Practically everything of importance is mouse-driven, with only a few rudimentary keyboard controls used. Pitch, yaw, and roll are controlled with the mouse, with primary and secondary firing being handled by the left and right mouse buttons respectively. Targets are automatically selected by simply keeping a target within the targeting reticule for a few seconds. Beyond that, it’s all guns and glory as you dodge, bob, weave and gun your enemy down into smoking oblivion.

Player interaction is held within the traditional fashion. There are “brigades”, which is simply a fancy word for ‘clans’, for pilots to get together and lay waste to other brigades. Also, Gala-Net holds special “attack or defend” events every week and a half. What happens here is that a massive “mothership” or other gargantuan enemy is thrust against towns and zones within the universe of Space Cowboy, and everyone in the immediate area bands together and decimates the invader. This instills a great sense of camaraderie within Space Cowboy, though it only really clicks in at later levels (20 or greater).

Graphically, Space Cowboy remains on-par with the remainder of free-to-play MMOs out there. They’re really nothing to glow about, but a decent draw distance, colorful units and environments, and a diverse mixture of characters makes sure that the game isn’t painful to look at.

There are some issues, of course. For example, the music is terrible, hands down. Thankfully there is a “player” feature at the bottom of the screen that allows you to disable the tunes so that you can whip up your own media player and crank your own Kenny Loggins-inspired rock ballads. Secondly, the initial low-level grind, as smooth as it is, is incredibly lonely. The beginning areas of Space Cowboy, even in the highly-congested servers, are sparse and desolate, save for the swarms of non-player characters and enemies. In-game communication is also a major pain, with no options to send in-game e-mails or private messages that will arrive on the recipients’ doorstep on the next login. Missions are a little too spaced out as well, with requirements that make it unlikely that you’ll be able to simply pick up the next mission upon completion of the previous one. It’s somewhat jarring to be forced to grind for a good fifteen minutes before being able to take up the next mission and grind some more.