Go - GONG!

Multiplayer games evolve. It is something I learned from being exposed to PC games long before internet have become mainstream in the country. Back then, me and my geek friends in high school would huddle around an Intel 486 computer to kill each other with tanks as small as dots in a game called Scorched Earth. The objective of the game is pretty simple. A player will be given a tank, which he will use to shoot an opponent's tank. In between turns, crates of different ammunitions - ranging from napalm rockets to nuclear bombs fall from the sky. These crates spell the victory of a team,or a player depending on how good he is at shooting his opponents, without killing himself with the weapon he receives from above.

A PC generation later, another classic game was born. This time, instead of tanks, worms were being employed to kill the rival worms. Me and my now pa-cool barkada would still huddle around my Pentium 2 computer to blow one another with banana bombs and sheep missiles. We would laugh, jeer at one another or sometimes even roll over the floor not because someone had won against a friend's worm but because of the manner his worm got killed. (I remember my worm got blasted into pieces by a holy hand grenade that explodes shortly after the sound of a choir singing Hallelujah can be heard in the background)

Worms 2 was so addicting among my freshmen tropa, that we learned how to cut classes because of it. The game's cartoon-ish graphics combined with more than a dozen weapons to kill your friend's wiggler in a very funny way, had made this game not only a form of distraction from our hectic academic life, it also sealed our friendship for many years to come.

Now gamers get old; most of their habits change, but multiplayer games only get more sophisticated as time goes by. With the advent of MMORPGs and high-speed internet connection, the gaming environment had taken a 360 degree overhaul but the essence of the game remains the same. I'm talking about games that foster competition among teams of human players who personally know one other. These games are different from the likes of MU or Ragnarok in one important aspect: While Ragnarok lets players form guilds and teams to combat an AI enemy, the games I am talking about encourage human players to compete with one another. The addictive element of the game lies not with the power-ups and the bling-blings it contain but in the different outcomes of the game being played.

Last week, I was lucky to get in-touch with a friend who works at Mobius Games. I told him the week before of my sad fate of being left out by online gamers simply because of my dial-up connection at home. Being sympathetic to my situation, he invited me see their upcoming games and play them together with the game masters. Excited at the opportunity being presented, not only did I start recalling my gaming history, I also started playing some of my old PC games again.

One of the upcoming online games they introduced to me was a game called Gong. I tell you, Soccer fans and players would like this ballgame... and yes, you get it right, it is a Soccer game with a twist.

I am not sure if some of you have played a Soccer computer game before like the FIFA series by Electronic Arts. Don't worry, I haven't either. However, impressions tell me that EA's Soccer game is as serious and high-powered like the real game itself. With Gong, the same Soccer rules apply but the game itself is twisted in a way a human player would truly find cute rather than being complicated.

For one, your player looks like an anime character forcibly abducted from some cartoons in Animax. You can dress it up with dozens of bling-blings to choose from the game, that in the end it would look like your player will attend a costume party rather than a soccer match. There are also mini-games and magic crates that can help your player get extra advantage against other human players during a match. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to explore most of Gong's features because of time constraints. However, seeing Mister Kitsune wearing a plain-white soccer uniform with a huge mushroom bag on his back left me glued to my computer long enough to witness the Game Masters play Gong together.

For starters, the game appeared challenging because I first played it with the Masters when I was in fact, a beginner. Even at this very moment, I'm still at awe at how they were able to pull tricks such as creating a black smoke that blocks your computer screen or an appearance of a disco ball in the field which forces every player to dance for a few seconds during the match.

Gong has definitely a feel-good impression. It has addictive qualities that appeal to groups that include males and females. I could almost imagine several computers being occupied by a group of friends playing Gong. Their howls, shouts and jeers would drown the voices of those playing Dota and other online games inside the internet cafe.

Unfortunately, Gong is still in its beta testing part. Perhaps in a few months time, it will be introduced in the market with fanfare, like all online games before it.

Playing the game together with the masters had left a strange feeling that stirred an ancient part of me. I suddenly remembered the days when we used to huddle around the monitor to play the same kind of game back when we were younger.

How things go very fast these days.

Weird that no matter how games have evolved, somehow it retains an essential part that even older gamers like me can easily connect.