I likes me some Combat Arms but I have a big dilemma, the game is free, but it's kind of needy. This online arcade style shooter with some of the best and most balanced maps I've ever seen wants me to play it more than two hours a day. This is largely due to Nexon's gun rental system were you start with 9,000 game points that you drain on renting gear and equipment each day you put lead downrange. This means your purchases are gone in a fixed amount of real time, usually 24 hours. You earn points back through kills and wins.
A good weapon, say an AK-74 with scope, or fan favorite G36E, will run you 950 gp/day (game points per day) or you can play this game on the cheap by popping a 150 gp/day scope on your trusty yet mediocre M-16. The better rifles are more fun since they enable long range kills and better chances of high kill ratios all around. The problem is at 950gp per rifle per day, and earning only an avg of 150gp per round, it takes more than six rounds, or two hours per day not to bleed cash, and bleed cash you will. You can fund raise by playing for a day and only purchasing a scope, but this is almost reminiscent of grinding in MMORPG's. Don't let other bloggers fool you, you can have fun doing this on the Grunt servers. But as a Combat Arms player you are perpetually in a race to loose less than a few thousand gp per rank. If you make it to the next rank you will receive gp bonuses and in theory as long as you only bleed a few thousand gp per level, you're ok. Warning, this is easier said than done should you have a job, fiancé, dog, or child.
There is something to be said for having to earn your way through a game. I feel as if the trend has been going in the opposite direction for the past two years. By forcing you to earn your keep, Combat Arms challenges you to become a more efficient shooter. Wanting higher kill ratios and more game points per round, without spending real life cash, I found myself studying maps constantly for new sniping ledges, tactics, and advantages. But if you're wallet is dedicated to unleaded 87 octane like me, or you just don't want to spend real money on a free game on principle, then this rental system is both a mood killer and motivation to play.
I respect Nexon for having a business model in the first place. If there is one thing I've learned since leaving the guarded halls of torture, ahem, academia, it's that nothing is free and in order to bring you Combat Arms for free, someone has to be paying. If you should like to support the poor and needy gamers of the world you can avoid much hassle by shelling out some real world cash to pick up powerful weapons for 90 days for under ten dollars. But by those standards if you play Combat Arms for more than six months you're buying the game and then some. But hey, you're keeping it free for me and as I said, I likes me some Combat Arms. So gun rentals, bane or boom? I'm conflicted.