Give Me The Rock

Many of you have either heard of or played Cyberdunk - the “world’s biggest basketball MMORPG” (I’m taking their word for it since I only know of two). Both Nels and I played it for a while and I think we stopped for the same reason – the game simulator was not good. You can only take so many 160–40 wins or losses before the game seems a little silly.

Cyberdunk is in their 6th season and it’s possible they’ve had improvements to the sim (I haven’t played since the 4th season). But, that’s not why I’m here. I’ve recently started playing a new basketball game that has been seriously draining my time over the past couple weeks: Court Rivals.

I’m always hesitant to recommend stuff on GMTR, partly because I don’t want you to hate me if you think the stuff sucks, but mostly because I never get paid for my recommendations. But after getting to know the ins and outs of the game, I’m fairly confident that if you visit GMTR, you’re going to like Court Rivals.

Like Cyberdunk, you basically create and develop your own basketball player. You’re in charge of his* training and what team he plays for. There are a number of different training categories and you can mold a player in different ways based on the way you train him. And unlike Cyberdunk, the simulation seems pretty realistic. In fact, my team recently pulled off a pretty big upset, beating a higher ranked team by the score of 100-98.

On the downside, there isn’t too much to do in the game right now besides train your player and play in games. There are no contracts (you can leave a team anytime), no money system to speak of (hence no contracts), and no betting or equipment. Maybe this will change in time, I don’t know. But Court Rivals does the one thing that’s an absolutely necessity – its games are fun and competitive.

Court Rivals also has a nice perk for new players. At the end of a season, everyone’s stats are rolled back (decreased) based on a certain formula (not all the way back, but significantly), meaning that new players don’t start sooooo far behind the veterans that they can’t complete at all.

Season 2 of Court Rivals is ending in 3 days, so if you are interested, you should be able to sign up for the start of season 3. Sadly, my team – the Ripe Mature Cows – currently has a full roster. But it is extremely easy to start your own team and begin recruit players. And with the season 3 rollback, your team will be competitive right from the start. So, if you’re looking to waste even more time at your computer - check out Court Rivals.

But wait – there’s more! If you still want to know more about Court Rivals before signing up, you can read a couple interviews with Kevin Kazimir (the wizard behind the curtain) on both And One and With Malice.

* or her, I guess. Nothing is stopping you from creating a seven foot tall woman.