From the ashes I come to review another game, but this one has a new flavor. It is not a hack-n-slash, nor is it a platformer / adventure / puzzler. I speak of course of Aion, a new MMORPG from none other than NCSoft, the company behind such titles as Guild Wars, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Lineage I and II, and Exteel. Reviewing an MMO is particularly challenging, as you can never truly beat the game, and so you have never really experienced all there is to experience. That being said, lets begin!
If you have ever played an MMO before, you have come to expect that they are only average graphically. But the first thing you may notice upon loading into Aion is how sparkly new everything looks! More surprisingly, it doesnt take as beastly of a computer as you might expect. The truth of the matter is you could probably run Aion better than you could run older, less shiny games like World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, or even Lord of the Rings Online.
Admittedly, the game can look rather dull on lowest graphics settings.
But even with all your options set to minimum, the gameplay is still gleaming with potential. Unlike many existing MMO's where you run around a fantasy world looking identical to two thousand other people on your server alone, Aion has a robust character customization that will leave games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion feeling like Nickelodeon Monopoly. You can make your character small as a child (And actually look like one too!) or you could create a behemoth that towers ominously over the typical human player. Some people have even taken to making Celebrity look-a-likes, or recreating their favorite videogame / anime characters. The possibilities are defined almost exclusively by your patience and imagination.
The controls and interface are pretty much what you would expect from an MMO, as Aion uses the tried-and-true actionbar / health-mana / minimap configuration in use by so many other games. In this way, it's a breeze to jump in and start questing, powering through those early levels like a pro.
Let me go off on a tangent here and explain the quest system, which could be described as the bipolar schizophrenic evil mastermind after a late night at the bar. Basically, you have three types of quests.
There are campaign quests, which are roughly sequential, and are specific to each game zone. That is, you get a new set of Campaign quests when you enter a new zone, and in order to do the later ones you must first complete the beginning campaign quests in that zone. They arent always a straight chain of quests, but for the most part they follow a progression.
Then there are regular quests, which you pick up from various characters in various places for various tasks that really dont vary much at all, and tend to be your typical kill-this-many-creatures or collect-that-many-items or go-talk-to-this-guy-because-Im-too-lazy-to quests. Not too interesting, self explanatory, moving on.
Finally, there are work order quests. These are specific to your crafting skills. Basically, they are infinitely repeatable quests wherein the crafting trainer gives you a specific material, a temporary item recipe, and tells you not to come back until you have successfully crafted that item a half dozen or more times. At first, they supply you with everything you need to make the item. But later, those cheap little bastards only give the primary ingredient for higher level crafting quests, and you have to purchase / find / otherwise procure them in order to complete the quest. Nevertheless, they are a welcome addition to the quest log.
The campaign quests, it should be noted, follow a rather epic storyline detailing your character's hidden path, which by some twist of fate has been hidden from you. As long as you dont worry yourself overly much about how half a million other people are in exactly the same boat as you, it should give you a feeling of being rather special. Despite being cliche, the main storyline is very well created, and is a delightfully refreshing narrative aspect to an already shiny game.
It should be noted that gaining levels grows increasingly more difficult to do, and it isnt very long at all before it takes an interminably long period of time to even gain a level at all. Since levels mean much less in Aion than in other games you may or may not have played however, you shouldn't spend too much time worrying over your miserable lack of progress. As a side note, dying to regular creatures (Which excludes all forms of Player vs Player, and Player vs Player vs Environment) loses you experience. You cannot level down, and you can pay a small sum to regain most of what you lost at any major town.
Speaking of Player vs Player vs Environment, let me explain the epic Fortress sieges. On occasion, fortresses in the Abyss (The main PvP / PvPvE area) become vulnerable. This means they may be taken over by either player-controlled faction, or even by a third computer controlled faction, the Balaur. The Balaur enjoy raining from the sky in fiery clouds of doom foreboding death and destruction, playing blackjack, and roasting smores on fires fueled by the corpses of their enemies. Basically, the Balaur fight against whichever faction currently has the upper hand in the Abyss. While it's an uphill battle to remain in the lead, it provides the entire faction with reduced prices from vendors, and pretty much saves everyone hundreds on their car insurance. Well, maybe not car insurance, but it lets everyone keep just a little more jingle in their virtual pockets. The fortress raids themselves are of epic proportions, often with hundreds of players on either side frantically flailing away at each other to control the fortress.
As a final note, flying (with wings, not mounts!) is not just a method of travel. Each class has a different boost to stats while flying, whether it increases the healing they do, or their defensive power, or some other stat increase. Flying is as much a form of travel as it is a tactical choice, but beware; you only have a limited amount of flight time, and falling hurts. A lot. The sound that plays when you have low flight time will likely haunt my dreams for years to come. Aerial combat adds an entirely new dimension (literally!) to the battlefield, and it just means danger is that much closer behind.
Before I finish, I just need to clear this up in case anyone is still confused:
THIS. IS. NOT. A. CUDDLY. GAME.
If you want to dance around picking flowers and spreading love and generally being carefree and oblivious, you would be infinitely better off playing Hello Kitty Online. Whether you are just questing on your own, or braving the Abyss, you will die. Aion is a major challenge, especially compared to relatively caring, nurturing games like WoW, Age of Conan, or Star Wars Galaxies. It requires skill more than gear, and regardless of how good you are you will run into more than you can handle at some point. If you want a challenge with a side of zesty epic storyline and a hefty helping of solid gameplay that comes with shiny graphics and a fresh mythological perspective for a game all in a convenient little combo platter, then go pick up Aion. Now.
