Remember back when I was talking about UberStrike, an FPS that got absolutely destroyed when it launched on Steam? Well, seems like it's finally getting what it had coming to it.
Just to refresh some people's memory, UberStrike is a "free-to-play" first-person shooter that got massive amounts of negative reviews when it launched on Steam some time ago. One reason for this being that it screwed up the in-game economy when the accounts and game data was ported, and basically a few in-game purchases became a few bucks cheaper than before the move to Steam. Another reason for this being the absolute chaos that cheaters created. You literally could not find one match without there being a cheater.
This went on for a few months, and people eventually just had to deal with it. Then a few weeks ago, Cmune, the developing company for the game, decides they're going to "sunset" the game. Which basically means they're going to slowly, over the course of three months starting from April 13th, going to shut down the game.
On April 13th, they already pulled the download link from the Steam store. They also stopped all credit purchases for exclusive items. Starting May 13th, they're going to disable the in-game shop for these exclusive items. Finally, on June 13th, they're going to shut down the game servers.
"Finally," I thought to myself. It was about damn time Cmune decided to take this crap down. But no matter what, shutting a game down isn't always what a developer should do. And especially not in this manner.
First off, the game was definitely a childhood experience to some people, including myself. Like I said before in my last post about the game, UberStrike used to be a game called Paradise Paintball. I was one of the ONLY people who ever played the first version that came out in 2008, in the Apple store. Over a short period of time, the game went through three updates, one getting rid of the original chibi character models, and overhauling the weapons from just the machinegun and rocket launcher to adding a sniper rifle and a backup pistol, all available to the player, with a shotgun available to purchase or rent. Spring grenades also made their debut, along with the legendary Oriental Kenzo, Gideon Tower's original design. Perhaps some of you remember the infamous crane camping spot on Kenzo? Or maybe the windowsill spot?
PP was then given a MAJOR overhaul. The game took it's new name, UberStike, redesigned Oriental Kenzo, and gave the game a more cyberpunk look. The game was still fun to play, albeit inferior to the beauty of Kenzo and paint splatter. Campers always found new tricks, from ledge glitches and wall glitching on Gideon's, to hiding in treetops. Young pros found their way to the top of the leaderboards, clans were made, rocket jumpers and noscopers all had their place here.
And then... it just didn't take off from there. Veterans missed the original feel of PP, and weapons became broken. The Deliverator, one of the original UberStike weapons, became too expensive for people to rent weekly. The UberMachinegun had 100% accuracy, which made it a poor man's sniper rifle. Game design became sloppy too. They ended up releasing "blueprint maps," which were basically maps without any art to design them. Though they ended up having designs to go along with them, they were often the same. One map even had wall clipping issues with moving walls. You could literally stand in the path of this rotating wall and clip through it.
I guess Cmune just thought it was too much of a hassle to support it, so I can see why they'd want to cut it off. We knew it from the start when we were able to buy weapons without the use of credits. But the way they handled the game before the Sunset was just a massive disappointment.
Hackers were a HUGE problem in the early Steam days. And Cmune did nothing, leaving players to just deal with it. And the controversy with the in-game purchases did nothing to help this, coupled with the fact that many would just decide to hack funds into their account.
Granted, they may have been working on their other games, but to just turn a blind eye on the community that primarily supported them is just wrong.
And so they decided to just shut it down. They pulled the downloads, stopped credit purchasing, and basically just told everyone that the game's over. People are petitioning to release the servers to the public, but to no avail.
It honestly was a lot of fun to play this game. From the chibi characters, to the hilarious glitching, to the desperate times of cheating, I truly enjoyed the game, but it was just sad to see how it all just went downhill. It turned into a travesty of a game, but we still can't let go of the fact that it was once our own little community, our little painball paradise - or Paradise Paintball.
To the UberStikers and the PP veterans who found this, it was fun meeting you all.
--GameKiller
