I originally intended to just dedicate this blog to dice RPG’s but I think it better to broaden the subject base to group RPG’s.  Here is an initial review of a computer RPG:

Company: NC Software
System: Aion
Version: Open Beta
Release Date: 9/21/2009
Review: WoW Clone with some unique system mechanics.  Enjoyable so far…

The review is a bit early on this one so I will keep the post updated as I progress.  So far in my few hours of gameplay, I do admit that this is a fantasy clone of WoW.  But this isn’t a bad thing.  Blizzard did a good job in setting up the UI and an efficient system.  Aion took the better things from it, did some small improvements then put it back out.  The only annoying thing so far is relearning the hot keys to bring up the menu’s.

Story wise, they came up with a unique idea and world not seen before.  Though like any fantasy story it involves light/darkness (good/evil).  The world has been destroyed, leaving human kind separated on two inverse hemispheres (at this point physicists should be crying).  There are more details but play the game to find out yourself.

The quests and gameplay are your standard MMO.  You have the three standard missions of ‘kill it’, ‘gather it’ and ‘take it to x’.  I am still too low level to get a feel of the story quests and such but so far its smooth and far from boring.  Levels seem easy enough to get but that again is probably because I am low level.

UI and system wise, it is hard to stray from the action bar.  Its almost a requirement in MMO games as menu’s would be too much a pain.  The thing I like the best are the chain and triggered skills/abilities.  Basically there are secondary abilities that can be used only after a requirement has been met.  One is chain skills, you use one to ‘chain’ into the next.  The UI handles this by actually replacing the first skill button by the second one.  It even puts a glowing mark around it to show its been activated (foolproof).  The triggered are simple enough, caused by damage taken or dodging an attack.  They will activate for you to use.  These are not only pointed out on your bar but apear next to the enemies health box to tell you to ‘use this dummy’.

Overall I find it an enjoyable game.  Before I tried the beta, I was nowhere interested in it at all.  Now that I have actually fooled around with it, I might play this for a month or two when it comes out.  Updated to come.