Free Agent: Moon Breakers

GameSpy's Free Agent is your advance recon into the world of free-to-play games. His mission: jump into a free game every week and put in some hours to see how much fun can be had without spending a cent, then try out some paid items to see if they're worth the asking price. This week, he's taking to the stars in spaceship shooter Moon Breakers. But will he rise to the top of the dogfighting heap, or will he crash and burn, leaving a moon-sized crater in his wallet?


No Money Down

I'll give Moon Breakers this much: It's incredibly easy to get into. Within only a couple clicks (using the Steam version), I was choosing my ship class -- light, medium, heavy, or bomber -- alongside brief yet effective explanations of each stratosphere-bursting starfighter's role in combat. Admittedly, part of that stemmed from the fact that it was all pretty standard stuff. Light ships dart about like fireflies (sans Nathan Fillion's impeccable captaining, sadly), so they're best suited for base defense or flag captures. Heavies, meanwhile, are sluggish but pack a slobberknocker of a punch, mediums can do a bit of everything, and bombers... well, bombers are basically dead weight except when picking on something their own near-immobile speed in the form of enemy bases.



Moon Breakers' simplicity, however, is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, without so much as flinging one of my piggy banks out the airlock, I felt impressively capable -- if not particularly devastating. First, I took the basic light F-3 Mamba for a spin and managed to rain death from above (well, more above, given -- you know -- space and all) on a respectable number of enemies in team deathmatch, CTF, and Base Assault. Sure, my engine boost tended to putter out in seconds and my ability to withstand fire would've been improved if my armor were made of still-wet papier mache, but I was able to rack up enough kills that I never felt particularly frustrated. Regardless of ship model, if I got the drop on an opponent, I generally came out on top.

Once I got tired of the barebones Mamba, I toyed around with the other temporarily free ships. (Moon Breakers uses a League of Legends-style weekly rotation to let you demo ships). The light F-3X Sidewinder, for instance, put the Mamba's speed to shame, but tends to react to everything from particularly thick clouds of space dust to its local baseball team failing to make the playoffs by exploding. The heavy FH-100 Hammerhead, meanwhile, ended up being one of my favorites because of its mix of slow-yet-steady movement and lock-on missiles. By and large, though, the same strategy pretty much worked with each ship I tried: loop around, position myself above/behind my enemy, open fire, and celebrate victory with ice cream. (The last step isn't required, but is highly encouraged.)


Taken on its own, it has its moments -- for instance, the time a swarm of my teammates was nipping at the heels of the enemy flag carrier, only to go kaboom-splat against asteroids. But then, at the last second of the last minute of the hour of our defeat, I swooped in from the carrier's blindspot -- Han-Solo-vs-Darth-Vader-style -- and blew their ship to smithereens. "NoooOOOOoooOOO" indeed.

However, between the lack of real team tactics and a pace/mode selection ripped straight from today's biggest FPSes, Moon Breakers feels quick, weightless, and insubstantial. Everything -- from ships to incredibly basic upgrades -- is purchasable via either experience points or real money, but I never felt particularly compelled to count my wallet among the first of its kind to leave this planet because it didn't seem like I was missing out. I mean, I'm all for accessible games, but Moon Breakers' gravitational pull is nearly non-existent. Nothing about the meat-and-potatoes space shooter really held me in its dizzyingly repetitive orbit.

Insert Coin

However, in its own twisted way, that turned out to be a good thing. See, if there was actually any reason to stick around for the long haul, I would've been outraged at the amount of experience (or "cred," in Moon Breakers lingo) needed to earn one ship. Frankly, it's absurd. Depending on performance and whether my team won or lost, matches generally yielded between 500 and 1500 cred. Ships, meanwhile, cost between 600,000 and 3,000,000 cred. So basically, a low-end ship would still require somewhere in the area of nearly 500 matches, which -- at a length of 10 minutes or so -- adds up to more than 80 hours. For a single ship. The message? Buy -- don't earn.


So I dropped about $30 on a top-tier light ship, the V-66 Viper, and -- though I don't think it was worth that kind of money -- it was pretty absurd. While other ships sacrifice at least a single stat to excel in others, the Viper is simply best-in-class in terms of both speed and shields. Meanwhile, its firepower is solid, and it comes equipped with lock-on missiles to boot. Among flag-runners, it's basically a tiny, rocket-powered god.

Alternatively, I could've purchased a cred boost -- which came in x2, x4, x10, and x15 flavors. That's a slightly more reasonable option, with one day of x10 costing just over $2. While that could definitely add up, it's not too egregious if you're looking to unlock only a couple of upper-tier ships.

Again, though, I was still more than capable of getting kills and pulling off flag captures in lesser ships. If anything, the Viper made Moon Breakers less fun for me -- not other players. It sucked the challenge out of an already simple game. As such, I simply can't recommend spending money on Moon Breakers. It's mindless fun in quick, match-or-three bursts, but anything more devolves into redundant tedium.


Free or Flee?

Moon Breakers is an odd case. It clearly wants your money, but fails to create an experience deep enough to form a truly uneven playing field. Moreover, it offers a free week with select higher tier ships, so there's no reason to buy, say, the $30 four-ship bundle to help figure out if you're in for the long haul. So play for free, and have some middling, no-frills fun. Moon Breakers, then, is a nice enough F2P snack. Just don't expect a satisfying meal.


Spy Guy says: Sounds like Moon Breakers has some issues navigating the free-to-play asteroid field, but it does sound like a decent free space romp before I might get bored with it. Do you think you'll take it out for a spin around the virtual Milky Way?