Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Gunbound

Gunbound plays host to one of the most varied range of personalities ever. It’s a place where you can bury your every day, socially-accepted lives and run around in Herculean armour, screaming obscenities, and shooting everyone on sight.

You get the hard-core addicts who have permanently buried their ordinary personas and adopted their alter egos – whole armies of ‘Krull Grub Slayers’ on a full time basis. They’re easily recognized by their rank, which were probably recently invented by the game creators because no one else has 12,000,000GP, or they’re the noobs (newbies) in disguise who could drop a Boomer hook shot on a pin head under any conditions. Either way, they can swear in 46 different languages and will not hesitate to do so if you’re taking unnecessarily long to finish your turn.

Then there are the room-master addicts who love nothing more than controlling a room and selecting their team. They run their own little dictatorships by ordering other players to switch sides or change mobiles or to leave the room. If cooperation is not forthcoming, the offending player will be kicked out. It usually takes a good half hour to start the game, in oppose to the fifteen minutes to actually finish one.

As in any society, there are the nutcases. These can range from suicidal newbies who play in server 12 (free zone) or the dumb asses who run around killing their teammates, causing much confusion and irritation. In both cases, it’s not uncommon for teammates to turn and gang up on the ‘fukin noob’ and blast his heiny to hell.

Server chat can be quite psychologically damaging, especially when you’re new to Gunbound. Aside from trying not to shoot yourself in the foot, you have to deal with all kinds of harassment and insults. If you’re a girl, you tend to get a lot of ‘you’re cute’ and ‘I love you’, despite all rationale pointing out that you play with avatars - a girl avatar could well be a three-chinned couch potato suffering a midlife crisis. Play the attention properly though and you could be on the receiving end of several expensive cyber gifts, especially pretty clothes for your avatar.

At the moment, Gunbound’s growing fan base constitutes largely of (psychologically suppressed?) Singaporeans, but Malaysian and South American players are also starting to make their presence felt. What’s not to like? You kill people and earn money; it’s colourful and entertaining, and it’s a free and easy way to give your subjugated soul some measure of relief.


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