S4 League

S4 League is a third-person shooter multiplayer game developed by Pentavision in 2008. It is currently hosted in Europe by alaplaya and by Pmang in Korea.

The title of the game comes from the four "S" words defining this game: Stylish, eSper, Shooting, and Sports. eSper refers to the 'skills', powers held by characters within the virtual world setting of the game.

Gameplay
S4 League plays similarly to other online Korean and now English games of its nature, such as GunZ and Exteel; however it is somewhat unusual in its particular emphasis on teamwork, and sports, rather than violence aligned perspectives. It is a third person shooter, with two modes of play: Touchdown, Deathmatch; both with either no limits, or sword-only that restricts users to melee weapons and limited skills.

Players must have one weapon and one skill equipped in order to play.

Touchdown operates similarly to Capture the Flag, in which two goals are set up on either side of a field. A "Fumbi", which represents a ball of sorts, is placed in the middle. A player must grab the Fumbi and take it to the opposite team's goal in order to score a Touchdown. The Fumbi also quickly drains the SP of the player holding it, which can result in the use of skills being disabled until the Fumbi is dropped or the character dies.

Team Death match places up to 6 people on each team, and has the player fight for a set amount of points, or until the time runs out. Death Match fields are characterized by having many destructible objects in the game environment, such as roof-breaking of buildings and crates scattered strategically around the field.

Sword mode match is a type of game where people can only use melee weapons such as plasma sword, counter sword, or storm bat. This style of game-play, as the name suggests, prohibits ranged weapons to be used. Sword mode is more of a sub-based category, as you may use it as a setting in either Touchdown or Death Match mode.

Also a feature called the Combi system exists. The Combi system focuses on teamwork. Grouping up and playing with people with this system and playing in the same room as them gives you a +3% EXP boost. You can have 5 partnerships and so you can gain up to a 15% EXP boost if all 6 players play in the same room.

There is also a student-teacher concept where a level 13+ player is called a "Combi Master" and is treated as a teacher towards the "student" player. Whenever the student levels up, the Combi Master gets Combi EXP added to their account along with the 3% EXP boost. Obtaining enough EXP with the Combi system will grant the player access to a special Combi Master costume set.

Weapons and skills
There are many weapons and skills in S4 League that diversify play styles. All weapons and skills offer a "license" which allow a player to test a weapon or skill for 5 hours. Licenses may only be obtained once. Afterwards, the player can do tutorials for each weapon which is essentially the license test again but without the ability to test a weapon.

Weapons consist of the Plasma Sword, Counter Sword, Storm Bat, Sub Machine Gun, Handgun, Revolver, Heavy Machine Gun, Pistol, Gauss Rifle, Semi Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Cannonade, Railgun, Sentry, Sentinel, Mind Energy, and Mind Shock.

Weapons can cause criticals which increase the damage done per hit. Short range and Long range weapons gain criticals by performing Head shots, which is generally aiming for the head of the avatar. Hacker type weapons, specifically the Mind Energy and Mind Shock, gain criticals when the user and the target are on the same elevation.

Skills consist of Flying, Anchor, HP Mastery, SP Mastery, Shield, Invisibility, Detect, Block, and Bind.

Costumes
Along with weapons and skills, S4 sports a large selection of clothing items including shirts, head decorations, pants, shoes, and gloves. All items can be upgraded to give additional bonuses to damage, damage reduction, hp and sp, and other benefits.

There are outfits that resemble characters from the Music Videos of the songs in the DJMAX series (another game franchise made by Pentavision). A male character can buy the costume that makes them look like the gambler from the music video for Out Law, a female character can buy the costume that makes them look like the girl wearing yellow in the opening video for the first DJ Max Portable. Both gender characters can buy NB Ranger Masks (known in S4 as Envy Rangers, due to NB sounding almost like envy).

Items in the shop are usually part of a set but may be mixed and matched freely. Completing a set does not give any additional bonuses. Some items require the player to reach a certain level before using, but also do not give any additional bonuses.

Every piece of clothing must be repaired when its efficiency hits 50%. Repairs are roughly one half of the original purchase price, and increase as efficiency drops. If an item is upgraded, repair prices are doubled. Damage applied to equipment during Touchdown matches are reduced if the player is killed while holding the Fumbi. (Research is being conducted to determine whether or not the damage to equipment in a Touchdown game is GREATER than damage to equipment in a Death Match)

PSP edition
A special version of the game called S4 Portable is in the works for the PlayStation Portable game system. The game is similar to the PC version; it does connect to the same servers for online play. Therefore, playing against a PC user with the PSP version is possible.

S4 League Portable does not have any releases planned outside of Korea.