Either that's going to lead to some weird ass "I only read the title and decided to comment on it" comments...or people actually read these fucking blogs that I write.

Let's talk about free-to-play, ladies and gentlemen!

Specifically, let's talk about Tribes Ascend and Super Monday Night Combat. One of these games got my balls all tingly thinking of the good ol' times in college playing over a LAN with friends, while the other got my balls all tingly because it was a surprise of magnanimous proportions (also, magnanimous doesn't come up with an incorrect spellcheck...which is awesome). In the end, only one of these has remained installed...and for good reasons.

As it stands, a lot of my playtime goes into League of Legends. Why? The obvious and immediately available answer is much like Kurt Cobain's: "I hate myself and I want to die". You don't play a MOBA game unless you truly have some self-loathing issues that have resorted you to abusing yourself by playing with fucking idiots on a regular basis, hoping to find that one group of gleaming, shining examples that stand for everything humanity should be: intelligent, appropriately foul-mouthed, and they know how to beat the shit out of someone. Nonetheless, League of Legends does get one thing right, and that's the free-to-play model. They allow you to collect a form of in-game currency in which to buy runes to increase your power and capabilities during a match as well as purchase the various champions they release on an almost bi-weekly basis. You can also spend real money to purchase Riot Points. These can be used to purchase champions and vanity skins for the different characters. However, you CANNOT use the real money scheme in order to purchase things that affect gameplay.

That is the key phrase here, so let's repeat that, shall we? RIOT DOES NOT LET YOU USE REAL MONEY IN ORDER TO PURCHASE THINGS THAT AFFECT GAMEPLAY!

>.> I'm looking directly at you, Hi-Rez Studios. You and your fucking horseshit. Sure, I could justify spending $50 for the equivalent of two fully built characters (minus only a couple of crucial upgrades to components), but you are allowing the purchase of weapons that are obviously stronger than what any base player who is going with the free-to-play option all the way happens to carry with them. Also, I know that I've played a metric dick ton of Tribes 2 since college and happen to be able to jump into a Tribes Ascend match and fend for myself decently against a group of level 32 players...despite the fact that I am level 6...or something like that.

Nonetheless, this is how you handle a free-to-play model POORLY. I was hoping for things to go differently from the shitty way they handled Global Agenda, but that form of wishful thinking is something I should really train myself to stop believing in.

So fuck you, Hi-Rez. Game uninstalled. If you want to fix your matchmaking, change it to where people cannot buy an advantage over someone, and offer a more comprehensive playground in order to train with, I might consider picking the game back up.

In the meantime, my...time...is going to Super Monday Night Combat. I won't say that I totally agree with the pricing model found within Super Monday Night Combat either. $22.49 for an astronaut skin on Cheston? NO. THANK. YOU. Yes, I am well aware that I spent $15 on a skin for Annie in League of Legends. I also played Annie for well over 200 matches, and it was her Legendary. HER BEAR IS DRESSED UP LIKE THE FUCKING HARE FROM ALICE IN WONDERLAND! I FEEL IT IS JUSTIFIED...or at least I try to feel that way about it so I don't think of how much money I actually HAVE spent on League of Legends.

You don't wanna know.

It's probably close to $700.

I know, I'm fucked up. I need help.

Anyways, back to Super Monday Night Combat... That game is fucking great. By "fucking great", I mean "it's infuriating as hell when people fail to comprehend how to play the game or even fail to listen to their teammates, but it's super satisfying whenever you finally win a match after ROFLstomping a team so hard that you find yourself popping a mystery boner and get turned on by winning so hard".

That hasn't happened. It's just a euphemism.

Nonetheless, the pricing structure seems a little off. Hopefully, it's something that Uber will work out within the course of time. The only other issue I'm finding with the game is the way they handle their "free pro rotation" every week. Essentially, most of these F2P games will offer a handful of their characters for people to play over the course of a week without having to buy them at all. It serves the purpose of letting you check the character out and find out if you like that while also giving people who never want to spend a penny on it (even in-game currency, which is weird but whatever) the opportunity to play. However, the pro rotations that I've looked at from the past few times seem to lack a good balance for creating a strong team. For instance, this week only features low cost characters. No Sniper, no Assassin, no Gunslinger, no Sparks, etc. Essentially, none of the high-cost characters are free. A word to the wise: when you launch your game, you might want to offer one of those up for free so you can entice people to spend some real dough to buy the champ since they probably won't get enough in-game currency without spamming matches for about a week.

Other than that, the game is pretty smooth. The new interface since they had released the beta is slick and works so much more efficiently, but the matchmaking still needs a little work. A lot of that really is due to the lack of people online at any given point (I usually see around 2k people online at any point), but I have a feeling that number with grow as the game grows.

Here is my anti-climatic ending: Lord of the Rings: War in the North is pretty fucking boss, and I love Fez but don't think I'll end up getting through the New Game Plus because I refuse to look any puzzles up.

Until next time, piece.