Over the past few hours I have been wasting my life away.  On what, you ask?  On S4 League, I tell you!  Wondering what S4 League is?  It’s a frantic 3rd person shooter made by Pentavision of course!  Confused? Click on to find out!

Introduction

S4 League is a third person shooter made by a South Korean company called Pentavision(in)famous for Fantasy Tennis, Come On Baby and Audition. Ever heard of Pentavision or those games? Neither have I.  However I never pass up free online games, especially the quirky ones. So when a friend of mine happened upon the game, we decided to download it and play.  Here is the link, if any of you decide to check it out:

http://s4.en.alaplaya.eu/

Anyway.  I bet you are wondering what the S4 in S4 League stand for?  Style, eSper, Shooting, and Sports of course! What do they all mean you ask? I’ll tell you!

Style. Well that means you can look like your favorite generic Anime lead, or your very own creation!  The game is very stylized(see what I did there?) in a sense that the graphics are very cartoonish without any true cel-shading.  The game is very bright(screenshot below) and the models are exaggerated and very Kingdom Hearts stylized.

eSper.  This means you can really cheap it up in a match using supernatural abilities to dominate the poor noobs who don’t exactly know how to play.

Shooting.  Well, this is a 3rd person shooter so, yes.  You do plenty of shooting.  You start out in the game with a pair of weak low range duel submachine guns and a buster type looking plasma sword.  You have infinite ammo too, what fun right?  Your choice in weapons range from gauss machine guns to semi-rifles, to rocket launchers that shoot energy balls. Oh!  And you can get energized claws and wings so you can fly.

Sports. The sports aspect is pretty clever, if only a little tired. You can play matches like Team Deathmatch or Touch Down Mode, where you grab the “ball” (which is a midget in a space suit) and go to the Goal zone.  Talk about varied gameplay huh?

Gameplay

The gameplay isn’t all that great.  You create your avatar, then blindly figure out exactly what to do.  Luckily the website has a game guide, now how helpful it is I am not sure because I have not used it.  Though firstly you have to sign up at the website, which is easy.  If any of you have played Combat Arms or MapleStory then you will know exactly what I am talking about.  As for the gameplay, it is frantic and wild.  The only downside(and the thing that can’t be ignored) is that if you aren’t lagging and everyone else is, YOU cannot kill anyone else.  Apparently Pentavision has decided that lagging isn’t a good enough reason to advance in the game so they have made it mind numbingly impossible to play during the open beta.

Other than this single gripe, the game is simple and easily addictive.  Even in open beta, the players are friendly and good(some are from South Korea, so that is to be expected) but the other American players and total noob douches. I can’t wait until this game is finished and released to the public in a whole.  I believe this could give Nexons Combat Arms a run for its (mico-transaction-fed) money.

I suggest this game to any of the people who are looking for a game to play to pass the time, or those who want to rip their hair out in frustration.  Either way, I’m going back to play!

S4 gameplay