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Asheron's Call; Do you Heed the Call?
Type: Online RPG
Ages: All, not sure if a 7 year
old would want to or even could play the game.
System: Your pc.
So here's the story, apparently some wizard named Asheron was playing around with portal magic and he managed to make a portal that allowed Olthoi (EVIL monsters) to charge through the portal. They killed and enslaved the native Derethians (Umm..) and then the world was dim. A few stragglers survived, but the total amount of damage was horrible. Eventually portals opened up and newcomers were found in the land, amongst these, Elysa. She was a minor noble in the Aluvian kingdom, and when her and her people were enslaved, she was determined to escape and kill them all (The Olthoi). After long and fierce bouts with Olthoi, the humans got the Queen and once again, prospered in Dereth. But all is not well there now, Shadows loom over the land (And not the regular shadows, these ones have daggers and nasty spells =), people live in fear, and such.
The story is pretty open-ended, but you will soon realize why it is. You pretty much make your own, and the sense of freedom is amazing. You can look at a mountain in the distance and say "I want to go up there", and then.. run up there. You can see a group of people talking, and talk with them too, the point I am trying to show you is that, this game, is open and very free.
The combat in Asheron's Call is not like the type put together by Quake, Duke Nukem or any action games, nor is it like your typical RPG. You toggle in and out of combat mode by clicking on a dove icon located in the lower middle of your screen off to the right a bit. Then you can select the strength of your blow, the more strength put into each blow, the longer it takes and the more of your energy it drains. (Note I am talking about Melee because I AM A SWORDSGAL and not a archer.. or mage, or..:) Then after a complex formula for the amount of damage a blow does and the amount of stamina you use, you or the enemy gets just a little bit closer to death. I found this all too hard in the beginning but after level 11 you sort of get the hang of it.
Character selection is one of the most free things in the game. You can chose from literally millions of different combos of hair, eyes, and clothing. Then you can make up your own name to go with your alter-ego's looks. Then once you get in the game you can chose from zillions of weapons, wands, armor, shields and more. There rarely is a identical weapon/armor or even character because different things are crafted in different ways. Like a shield with a base AL of 10 (called a Buckler) can be 40 because when it was first made it was made exquisitely. =P And it also could be copper instead of the regular tannish color because it was a Copper Buckler instead of a normal one.
Finally the magic system in Dereth is too complex, each component has a word for it, each word helps make up a spell, there are different levels of spells.. it goes on. It is the best system because they almost reinvented the magic in RPGS. It's amazing, and since I am a Warrior, I can't really analyze it. There are different schools of magic, four in fact, Life (Restoring and draining spells), Item (Portal magic and enhancing or decreasing items, spells), Creature (Buffing or Weakening a character or enemy) and finally War Magic (Lighting Bolts and Acid Streams etc). These schools all have 30+ spells to learn and etc, it's very hard to explain for me, a non-magic gal, I hope this helps you understand it's not just a Alakasam, *Bang* you kill the monster kind of system. The more mages using a certain spell, the weaker the spell is. Enough about magic.
Asheron's Call also has an allegiance system, so if you are a higher level you can help newbies (as some higher level people call new players), out while getting helped yourself. Many people hold meetings, and patrons (the one the person pledges to) often give out presents for leveling, and all sorts of goods. (I happen to have the best patron ever...). Anyway, in return for all this great stuff, the patron or Monarch (Head of the allegiance) gets XP to help them level and they may get to move up a allegiance ranking, which allows them to possibly use higher value items that require a certain rank. Very helpful.
Now for the dark side (Those shadows? Naw'), bugs. And by bugs I am not saying Olthoi, Phyntos Wasps.. (Monsters in the game). This game has low bugs, but *STILL*, it can be annoying when you hand a friend a new sword and they say "Huh Alleria? What sword?".. and they have to relog because of the famous Item Glitch.. Or when you are barely alive and running from a monster, and it lags.. and you die.. because suddenly you can't move and the monster keeps charging.. and you don't get your corpse back because the server also crashed, making it impossible to get back in game... and you cry the whole night because you lost a Olthoi Helm or something. And then there is the glitch where you lose ALL YOUR VASSALS AND YOU DROP THREE RANKS! That was unpleasant. Also sad. Ok, I'm not going to hold grudges, they did give me a large supplement for it.
So in the end you may be saying, "Those bugs! OMG! Bad!.. Why did she give it a Five star rating then... huh?" Well, I did because of this. The sheer fun factor. If you spend the day with friends, LOLing (Is that a word?) a lot..., killing monsters, having fun.. then what is a few bugs? Olthoi helms are replaceable, you can relog, you can get more vassals.. The idea of a game is to be pleasing, and enjoyable. When you go to bed dreaming about Banderlings in the garage, when you get up for school the next day planning on what you will kill that day, when you stumble home and flip on the computer, when you say just one more pack of Drudges mom, I need the xp.., that is when Asheron's Call has served it's purpose. (Well I'm not that insane about the game, I hope.) It has been the best game to hit the world since Zelda. And now, if you will excuse me, I believe I have a pack of Luggies who need to meet steel.. Just one more, I swear.. then I'll stop..
Bottom Line: This game is the best RPG out there..
Three Four Word
Summery: Agree or meet steel!
Rating: *****+++++ Stars. Way to go MSN, you made a good game, for once. :)