For someone who doesn’t understand games, NCSoft’s Fuser might seem like just another rhythm game.

But for those more familiar, they’ll notice that Fuser is the South Korean game industry’s bold knock on the door of the Western console gaming market.

For too long NCSoft has relied on its 12-year-old role-playing Lineage series PC games, which took up 85 percent of its revenue in the first quarter of this year.

At a time when change was desperately needed, NCSoft has finally broke out of its comfort zone of role-playing games for the PC, launching its first-ever console game of a completely different genre in the unchartered territories of North America and Europe on Nov. 10.

Most importantly, after playing three hours of a single campaign, it is clear that the DJ rhythm game Fuser is fun enough to quench the thirsts of global gamers longing for new content amid the coronavirus outbreak.

In the beginning of the game, players can choose or customize their own DJ characters with different skin colors and outfits, though it is unfortunate that the customization options lack the facial features of Asian ethnicities. 

Then, players enter an outdoor concert stage with one mission: making the crowd go wild. On the stage, players manage a DJ platform that consists of four “turntables” on which players control drop drums, the lead melody, bass and vocals straight from the playlists of their favorite songs.

When the chic and bad-ass drumbeat of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” signals the start of the festival, the crowd answers by making some noise. To pump things up, the bass line from LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” was added to the remix. For the lead melody, what better choice than Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger”? Finally, when the vocals from Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” join the remix, the gauge of hearts that shows the crowd’s satisfaction was almost full.

However, after few hours of gameplay, it was difficult to get rid of the feeling that the game was starting to feel a bit repetitive. Also, the speed at which players can gain currency for unlocking songs was too slow, enough to buy one song whenever players level up, which might limit a player’s creativity and the desire to experiment, which is the whole point of this game. 

There was no doubt that Fuser was fun, but was it fun enough? Just before exiting the game, a moment of realization suddenly came -- Fuser is a game designed to enjoy together, not alone.

If played alone, Fuser is nothing more than a monotonous repetition of picking songs of right genre and era and dropping them on the turntables at the right moment.

If played together, Fuser becomes an entertaining platform where players can communicate by exerting their creativity, comparing each other’s works and uploading the remixes on their social media accounts, just like rap battles.

Simply put, Fuser has the potential to evolve into a new trend of connecting with people amid social-distancing measures and a new tool to chase off the coronavirus blues that affected many.

Above all, NCSoft couldn’t have chosen a better time to release Fuser, as the COVID-19 outbreak has created a favorable atmosphere for games. In March, the World Health Organization recommended playing video games as a safety measure to contain the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, a stark contrast to its decision last year that classified video game addiction as an official mental disorder.

Demand for consoles has exploded in Korea recently, with preorders for the PlayStation 5 being sold out in less than an hour on Sept. 18, and pre-subscriptions of Xbox All Access, which provides Xbox Series X consoles to subscribers on monthly installment plans, were sold out less than a minute in Korea on Nov. 3.

As to why NCSoft released its first-ever console game in North America and Europe but not Asia, it offered a long-term vision.

“In terms of the sheer number of users, China is the biggest market, but a game successful in China may not be successful in other countries due to cultural differences. However, as Western countries play games with consoles more than PCs, a successful console game in one Western country can be a success in another as they share common cultural aspects,” an NCSoft official said.

Fuser is available both on PC and the latest console platforms PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and Nintendo Switch.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com) 


Time to Play is a review of new game releases. Kim Byung-wook is a staff reporter at The Korea Herald and a hardcore Fifa Online 4 user with 456 friendly match wins. He has also played StarCraft 2 Zerg and once ranked diamond. He is currently a captain in the first-person shooter game Sudden Attack and the owner of a level 184 Soul Master in role-playing game MapleStory. Kim still plays Football Manager 2017. -- Ed.