Gamespot score:6.5 (Fair)
My score:7.0
(+)Pros:- Beautiful visuals, -Extensive character design, -PVP/PK system is pretty awesome, -Nice variety of well designed monsters and different areas, -Constantly receiving new skills is a good motivation to level up during the early 30 levels, -You can fly!
(-)Cons:- Can't trade,use auction house (Dafuq?) and more, -Voice acting and music is god awful, -Gets very grind heavy after level 25 or so.
Gameplay time:-
Okay, so I was tempted to go and play Aion online. I mean, come on. A game that used to be pay to play must have been pretty awesome. To get people to pay for an MMORPG must mean that it is way better than others...or so I thought. As a full package, it may have actually been a lot more of an enjoyable experience! Truly! But as a free to play experience....a huge chunk of the game as an MMORPG is completely sucked out. I really wanted to love this game, but after I realized the restrictions placed on the game, I quickly started to lose love for it. Nevertheless, if you can stand the lost of the trade or auction house, you can find a pretty extensive MMO here.
Unlike most MMORPGs, Aion actually had me remember part of its story. It has its own cut scenes and story implemented segments to really try and pull you into the game. Unfortunately, its not very memorable. It goes with you being the chosen one, and how you get visions of you flying over a spectrum of different winged enemies fighting each other. Because of this, you get to fly, and use special skills that normal warriors can't. Other than that, I cannot remember much, other than you going to different continents to help out with their needs.
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| Say hello to my character! |
The very first time you are going to boot up Aion, you will be so visually impressed by its incredible visuals. For a free MMO, this is by far some of the highest standards for graphics I have seen. From character models to environment graphics, everything looks pretty damn awesome. If your PC can run it on the highest settings, you're in for a treat. And with that, I'll just go ahead with the character design and creation. The character design is probably, at the moment, the best I have seen for any MMORPG. You can change and customize EVERY feature for your character. Height, face, shoulders, chin, mouth, lips....EVERYTHING.
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| You can fly! Like a boss! |
Monsters also come in good variety, and while there are monsters that are basically just color or theme swaps, you won't really pay much heed to them since there are so much more different ones to combat. All in all you just kill these monsters for quests, like in all MMOs. However, the character progression is pretty awesome. While the game picks and adds the stats for your character for you, the motivation to keep on playing is there. You get skills every couple of levels or so, and its always exciting to get your next skill to add to your arsenal. Some skills even allow you to chain them together for combo strings, which is obviously pretty cool. Since these are given to you pretty often...its a motivation to keep going.
Another really cool thing about the game is the PVP/PK system. You start the game choosing one of two races, the Elyos and the Asmodians. In the game, the Elyos and Asmodians are at war, and at any time, if you are see a player of the opposite race, its time to fight. At any time you see an Asmodian as an Elyos player, either you or the opponent can hit and kill you or him. This is cool as it sets up for some insane large scale battles. Invade an Asmodian world through a portal as Elyos, and bring along a group of 20 players. The 20 Elyos will roam the Asmodian world and search for Asmodian foes to vanquish. Its the same for the other race. This sets up for some crazy large scale fights. There are even areas where both Asmodian and Elyos reside together...and these are where crazy shit take place.
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| This is a lie, you can't create this many characters in -Free to play- |
Aion is a great game on its own, but as its -free to play- segment...it is not. It is missing a lot of things a free to play MMO should have. For one, we cannot use trade and the auction house. This is pure shit, as it is a must to have in EVERY MMORPG! To use it we have to be gold users, and pay for it. What? Isn't this system included in every free MMO out there? Why do we have to pay for it? There are more restrictions if you're playing this for free, but I won't go too much into them (one is that you can only create 2..2 characters!). As for the game itself...there's not much besides its god awful music and voice acting. Never have I, the moment I stepped into a MMO, turned off all volume settings immediately. It also gets grind heavy later on, which is something most MMOs also have, so its not that surprising.
Aion -Free to play- has some above average MMORPG elements and visuals that will impress every MMO fan. Its character customization and many more will put a smile on almost everyone's face. BUT! BUT! Take away the trade system and the auction house for us -free to play- players, and you suck away a good 33% of our experience, for I think those are very important to a MMO. You'll probably love the game and stick around for a bit, but once you realize that you cannot go on without the auction house or trade system, you will start to feel a little bit dreaded.
