NOLAG Lans

LAN Party Events in Winnipeg, Manitoba     |     The Network of Local Area Gamers

Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Game Writer for Hire

Posted by Trevor Lehmann On March - 17 - 2009

My name is Trevor Lehmann and I am the moderator/writer of this site. If you like my reviews and would like me to write reviews, guides, walkthroughs, etc. for your site please contact me at Lordoranos@gmail.com. I am sure we can work something out

Sins of a Solar Empire Review

Posted by Trevor Lehmann On September - 1 - 2008

Sins of a Solar Empire Review

The 4X game genre has always been a niche genre. Standing for the four objectives of games found in the genre, eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate has been a mantra that few unfamiliar with turn-based games have ever heard of. While games such as Civilization 4 and Galactic Civilizations 2 have carried the genre into the new millennium, the genre has continued to remain a niche one largely due to it requiring a turn-based system to allow the player to manage the many aspects of their empire. Unfortunately, in an age when twitch-based Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games have flooded the market, it seems that the turn-based game genre, and by extension the 4X sub-genre, has been pushed to the wayside. Iron Clad Games seeks to change all that by attempting to merge the RTS and 4X genres in their new galaxy spanning game, Sins of a Solar Empire.

In many ways, Iron Clad succeeds with its new 4X hybrid, creating a game that manages to wrap all of the fundamentals of a 4X game into an RTS game, but somehow misses out on the details that made truly memorable 4X games like Master of Orion 2 what they were.

First though, let us not downplay what Iron Clad has accomplished, as what the game does well, it does very well. Given a choice of three races, the mercantile TEC, fleeing Vasari, or vengeful Advent, you are handed a home world and told to go conquer the star system(s). The controls are spot on and allow players to expand their empire, research a tech tree, and manage fleets in combat with only a few clicks of the mouse thanks to some innovative management options.

The graphics are equally polished, illustrating the awe and beauty of the start systems and their accompanying, planets, ship, and orbital structures. Little details day and night cycles on a planet in relation to its rotation around a star and individual guns on a ship firing add to the atmosphere of the game and help to establish the immense scale of the game. Combat is a notable exception to this as despite the ships looking detailed and the guns firing appropriately, the battles themselves lack the edge of other RTS games. Supposedly massive cannons fire surprisingly weak and unmemorable looking projectiles. Dingy and miniscule missiles and lasers plink back and forth between ships while the accompanying ship explosions are easily outclassed even by older games like Homeworld 2. With that said, the combat is the single graphical blemish on the otherwise perfect frame of Sins of a Solar Empire and one that, considering the outstanding support Iron Clad Games and publisher Stardock have provided thus far, may be improved in the future.

In order to ensure that Sins of a Solar Empire is practical as an RTS, many of the features and details present in 4X games have been removed in the name of faster game times, less micromanagement, and simplified gameplay. While some of these reductions are certainly understandable, such as reducing maintaining morale down to a single structure and  reducing colony development from a build list of forty structures down to five buttons and a handful of orbital structures. Unfortunately, many features that while not fundamental to a 4X game, helped to establish the great ones from the average one are strangely absent as well. Aside from the ability to destroy planets, board enemy ships, and terraform planets (all of which this reviewer has fond memories of doing in Master of Orion 2), the biggest feature missing in this game is the ability to create or customize your race. While the three races present are aesthetically different and require different tactics mainly due to their varied research trees, they all feel just a little too interchangeable. All have equivalent (though subtly different) ships and structures, with each fielding a light frigate, flak frigate, long-range frigate, etc. Additionally, there is little difference in their objectives as all three factions approach colonizing different planet types in the same manner and with the same amount of effort put forth (e.g all races need to research the same technology to colonize a volcanic planet). Of course there is some variation in the race’s Capital Ships, which have a variety of abilities and fill Sins of a Solar Empire’s role as heroes.

Unique Capital ships don’t excuse the game from the features it cut however; as diverse races have has been a defining part of many great 4X games. That’s not to say that the races present don’t have unique play styles as they do, it’s just that they seem to be missing any earth shattering differences that really set them apart and with only three, you will be able to begin spotting the similarities very quickly. I would’ve certainly liked to have been able to create my own races with abilities that would truly set it apart from the others. Why can’t I have organic and psychic weaponry, planet creating or destroying technology, or the ability to play as a religious or hive like race with accompanying technology? Features such as these could potentially slow down setup, but certainly wouldn’t bog down game matches themselves.  With just a few unique technologies and the ability to mix and match racial traits defined before a match starts like most 4X games, Sins of a Solar Empire could have been a hybrid much more appealing to fans of both genres.

This isn’t helped by a lack of a single player campaign mode, which the developers have left out in favor of more fully developing the multiplayer system that luckily, works quite well. Unfortunately, without a campaign it’s hard to become attached to the races, as having only an intro cinematic and the manual to rely on for story doesn’t go far in fleshing out one race from another.

While 4X fans hoping for a harmonious blend of 4X games such as Galactic Civilizations 2 and Master of Orion 2 with RTS games like Homeworld 2 may find the game a bit bare, RTS gamers and even casual players will find a lot to love here. Crisp visuals, excellent music, and come on now…who doesn’t want to rule over a solar empire.

Score: 8.5/10

Mix Master Review

Posted by Trevor Lehmann On September - 1 - 2008

Mix Master

Recently, a lot of popular MMORPGs available only in Korea and Japan have been making the jump to North America. One of the newest of these is Mix Master by SeedC, a lighthearted free-to-play game that feels like a cross between Ragnarok Online, Pokemon and Dragon Warrior Monsters. While not a leader in the MMORPG pack, Mix Master certainly tries to do something new, even if the results are (forgive me, I can’t resist) mixed.

If you have ever played Pokemon before, you pretty much know the story of Mix Master. You play as one of four different characters capable of capturing and controlling monsters as well as combining them in a process called mixing. You hope to one day become a Mix Master through controlling and mixing of monsters. The story is virtually non-existent and merely serves as means of establishing the premise of the game, which is the capturing, training, and combining of a wide variety of monsters.

While the story falls far short of being engaging, the graphics pick up the slack, establishing a lighthearted and upbeat atmosphere through a cartoonish, anime style. Despite the game being played through a slanted, eagle-eye view, it manages to incorporate a surprising amount of detail. Wilderness and cities are covered in a smattering of buildings, statues, and ruins, each highly detailed with very few rough edges. Likewise, player characters and particularly monsters are highly detailed and well animated, including some nice little touches such as certain creatures bouncing as they move while others, walk, hover, etc. Equally impressive is the minuscule load times, which despite occurring between each area, last only a second or two, giving you barely enough time to acknowledge the anime drawings that accompany the load screens.

The music maintains the lighthearted atmosphere established by the graphics with upbeat electronica songs that change from area to area as you travel. While the song list is diverse, there is unfortunately, only one song per area, and it’s on a continuous loop. While enjoyable at first, you will find the songs for frequented area, particularly the games few cities, to begin to grate on the ear quite quickly. Additionally, there have been several incidents where the music has just suddenly stopped for no apparent reason, sometimes requiring restarting the game to fix the problem. Aside from the aforementioned bug with the music, Mix Master seems to be a pretty stable game, with well maintained servers and a lack of any noticeable graphical or system glitches.

The stability and simplicity of running Mix Master’s meshes well with its pick up and play design. Despite being an MMORPG and requiring considerable amount of time investment, the learning curve to Mix Master is comparatively low when compare to others of the genre. Starting out, you are given the choice of four characters, two males and females. For all intensive purposes, the characters are identical with the exception being that the females use ranged weapons while the males use melee weapons. In this respect, it seems the females are the preferable character choice as they get an extra hit or two in when attacking before the enemy can close the gap between them.

After choosing your character, the real customization begins as you are able to assign stat points at the beginning and with each subsequent level to improve any of the following attributes: Strength, Accuracy, Agility, Endurance, and Luck. Beyond affecting your own character’s attributes such as damages, health points, mana points, etc. it also affects your Henches.

Henches are the centre of Mix Master and the main aspect setting the game apart from other MMORPGs. Henches are essentially pets that follow you around and assist in combat with your character. You obtain by slaying monsters littering the wilderness outside of the few cities in the Mix Master World. As you slay the various monsters, there is a chance that they may drop their essence, referred to as a Core, which can then be taken back to town and revived as creature loyal to the player, referred to as a Hench. These Henches can then be leveled through combat in the same manner that the player does, becoming stronger with each level. Each Hench belongs to one of several classes, such as Plant, Metal, Dragon, etc. with each class doing additional damage to another class, but similarly receiving additional damage from another class. This class system adds another layer of strategy, especially when coupled with the fact that each class has a skill that all Henches of that class may use. This can create some tough decisions where you have to decide whether to deploy a hench that would counter your opponent or one that can heal, or maybe one that stun the enemy, the choices are endless.

On top of this, Henches can be combined together in a process called Mixing, whereby certain Henches can be combined to form stronger ones. While mixing does seem like a novel idea and is the central focus of Mixmaster, two main flaws hamper this otherwise interesting system. First of all, mixing falls onto a grind treadmill as players go out and kill monsters until they obtain the correct Cores for the mix. Next they take them back to a city, revive them, and place them in the mixer. After paying a substantial amount to mix them, the player is given a probability of success that is quite low when first starting out. After accepting the mix, one of two things will happen. The mix will either succeed, whereby the player is given a new Hench and the probability of future successes of mixing is increased, though only for the particular level range that the Henches were mixed in (ie. The calculation for probability for success from level 1 to 20 is judged separately from level 21 to 40). Alternatively, the mix could fail as they often do, in which case your Henches loose several experiences levels, possibly dying if they go below certain level and you are out a substantial amount of money, though you skill in mixing still improves similar to that of a success. Either way, the process of mixing results in large amounts of grinding before and after mixing for results that are very much chance based. The second problem with mixing is that many of the creatures you are attempting to create through mixes are available a territory or two beyond the one you currently inhabit. In the game’s defense, some Henches can only be obtained through mixing and a Hench raised from the lowest creature and combined several times up Is stronger than a higher up creature caught in the wild. This still doesn’t change the fact however, that it’s much easier to simply have your character gain a few levels and enter the next area to collect the creature’s core manually, rather than spend large amounts of time and money attempting to mix that same creature out of weaker creatures.

Skills offer additional customization and come in two forms. First, Henches may use their aforementioned class skill assuming they have the mana to do so, and though they start out quite weak, they quickly become much more useful as the Henches level up. Additionally, your character may purchase skills to use themselves, with the ability to improve them by spending skill points gained whenever your character increases in experience level, as well as through completing quests. The skills run the gamut from offensive fireballs to defensive heals and everything in between. Due to the limited number skill points available to improve skills however, you are better off choosing one or two skills and focus on improving them.

Outside of mixing and fighting, there is really very little else to do in Mix Master. Quests, Dungeons, Hench collecting, and Player versus Player (PvP) are all offered, but are really just excuses to fight more. To the game’s credit, the combat does work well enough, though it tends to go from mind numbingly simple when fighting an individual monster, with a skill or two being used as your character and Henches swarm the unlucky creature, or utterly overwhelming when fighting multiple enemies as you struggle to keep everyone alive, fighting the appropriate enemies, and using skills.

What does take some getting used to in Mix Master is the idea that the game doesn’t really give you any direction in what to do. The game expects you to set your own goals, which could include obtaining a certain piece of equipment or a few high level Henches and then working towards obtaining them in whatever manner you see fit. There is a nice right-click help feature that explains most individual objects you come across and if you’re really unsure as to what you should do, the game offers a help guide on their website and a robust online forum that should help you out. Additionally, the game has no penalty for dying other than having to walk back from town, allowing you to experiment, explore the wilderness, and try out new things without worrying what will happen if you get in over your head. Additionally, few monsters are aggressive, allowing you to safely travel through much of the world unthreatened, though if you happen to run into an aggressive monster, it’s often quite obvious. When you first start out, many of the wilderness areas are filled with creatures that really stretch the term “monster”, such as baby chicks, rabbits and various other small forest animals. As you go further into the wilderness however, the monsters suddenly shift from being cuddly little forest creatures that leave you feeling guilt stricken over slaying  them to Transformer and Digimon rip-offs that will tear you apart in seconds if you happen to wander by unprepared.

To avoid wandering to far from your appropriate level areas, you may take on a linear progression of quests, which try to establish a story, but is unfortunately marred with translation errors and fails to captivate anymore than the initial story did. Despite trying to establish a story, the quest tasks are all utterly repetitive, consisting of either talking to another NPC (non playable character) or killing certain monsters until they drop an item. These combat oriented quests become even more irritating when you factor in the often out of place combat sounds. When attacking a monster, sometimes the sounds will be appropriate, but occasionally some monsters makes a sound when attacking that resembles the sound a Furby would make when thrown against a wall. When you are given a quest to kill large amounts of this monster, it’s easy to imagine how annoying these out of place sound effects can be. Short render distances don’t improve quests, or combat in general for that matter, as you will often accidently attack monsters as you attempt move through the wilderness.

This can be blamed partially on the movement system for Mix Master, which requires constant clicking the ground ahead of your to character to keep moving. Mix Master could definitely benefit from an auto-move command or at least the ability to click on the mini-map to the get the character to move to that location, and save you from the inevitable wrist cramps you will get crossing the oversized cities and monster infested wilderness. Movement is further marred by poor A.I pathfinding, resulting in your Henches often becoming stuck behind rocks and fences, forcing you to backtrack to retrieve them. To the game’s credit, warp zones have been established throughout the game world, allowing you to teleport between cities and certain sections of wilderness for a small cost.

If completing quests isn’t for you and you feel you are comfortable with the Henches you have, you have a few options, though they are all combat oriented. You could go to a dungeon, which features several floors you descend down, fighting powerful monsters as you do and obtaining better equipment along the way. In terms of equipment, Mix Master is quite bare bones when compared to other MMORPGs. There are only a few different sets of weapons and armor for each character and they are organized in a linear strength pattern, making each item a clear stat up from the previous one and leaving no reason for a player to decide between different types of armor. If you feel like sidestepping dungeons, you could try buying the equipment off other players who have set up market stalls, but thanks to wildly fluctuating prices in the Player economy and an overall lack of players on the North American Server (Draco in my case), you may find it’s more trouble than it’s worth to find a player willing to sell you equipment at a reasonable price. Alternatively, you can spend real money at the Mix Mall to purchase items that can do anything from change your character model to obtain or improve  powerful equipment. Additionally, you may purchase access to member zones where you can hunt monsters off limits to nonmembers.

Unfortunately, those who choose to invest in the Mix Mall do get a substantial leg-up against non-paying players when in Player V.S Player (PvP). PvP in Mix Master is pretty standard and occurs in two ways, either in the Free Battle Zone or in a Siege Affair. Free Battle Zone is just what it sounds like, with players going there to challenge fellow players with the same thought in mind. The inclusion of Henches makes PvP a little more differentiated than most MMORPGs, as due to the number of different Henches available (350 currently), you are never sure what you are going to fight next. If larger scale combat is your thing, you may consider participating in a Siege Affair. A Siege Affair is a battle between guilds with defenders try to defend a castle while attackers trying to break through the defenses and perform a particular Hench mix at the centre of the castle for three minutes. The victorious guild(s) can than have the ability of setting taxes in particular towns, allowing them to profit off the victory, though opening themselves up to challenges by other guilds.

In the end, Mix Master is a forgiving and lighthearted MMORPG that is a little too light on options for hardcore and dedicated gamers, but is well suited to casual players looking to try something different. The innovation of the game is somewhat hampered by an interface that frequently fails to acknowledge commands and a mixing feature quickly becomes an exercise in frustration. With that said, the light hearted atmosphere combined with easy to learn and forgiving gameplay of Mix Master makes it a game that may not captivate your every waking hour, but will certainly provide a relaxing break from more intense and time consuming games.

Score: 6/10

Pros:

+Lighthearted and detailed anime graphics

+Upbeat sound track

+Deceptively deep combat

+Innovative Hench system

+Freedom to set your own goals

+Free

Cons:

-Virtually nonexistent storyline

-Mixing is frustrating and time consuming

-Very little to do outside of combat

-Limited player base

-Barebones equipment system

Knight Online Review

Posted by Trevor Lehmann On September - 1 - 2008

Knight Online

Trevor “Travincal” Lehmann

Knight Online, serviced by K2 Networks, is a wildly popular, free MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) supported by several hundred thousand players. Knight Online proves however, that just because a game is popular doesn’t mean it is devoid of any major flaws.

As far as setting is concerned, Knight Online inhabits a generic fantasy world with a lightweight storyline that is just an excuse to have two factions; El Morad (Humans) and Karus (Orcs) fight one another. MMORPGs generally don’t feature the best stories so it isn’t surprising the Knight Online’s story is the way it is, but at least it makes a nice backdrop for one of the game’s main features, faction based Player versus player combat (PvP).

Sadly, aside from Player versus Player combat, Knight Online doesn’t do much to break out of the standard fantasy MMORPG mould. The majority of your time will be spent killing monsters over and over to level up your character while periodically completing a quest that requires you to…you guessed it, kill monsters. It doesn’t help that the character classes, of which there are four, are all standard MMORPG archetypes. There’s the warrior who absorbs damage like a sponge, the rogue who can cloak and do massive damage with daggers or fire arrows from afar, a mage who does high, area of effect damage, and the priest who strengthens and heals other players. You do get to specialise your character through skill points that you can distribute with each level gained past ten, choosing between, for example, having a priest that focuses strengthening allies or one that focuses on weakening enemies. This still results however, in cookie cutter archetypes, only what in other MMORPGs is two or three classes is now one in Knight Online.

Graphics don’t help to pull Knight Online out of mediocrity, for despite Knight Online being a 3D game, a relatively uncommon occurrence in free MMORPGs, the graphics as a whole simply don’t stand out or boast a level of polish to recommend them. Character models, while diverse, are blocky, and environments are filled with repeating textures. Magical effects are occasionally eye-catching but, for the most part, prove to be just as bland. If there is one high point to the graphics, it has to be the anime style drawings present in the load screen as they depict epic scenes of heroes engaged in combat. You won’t have much time to admire the illustrations however, as perhaps due to the limited graphics in Knight Online; load times go by quickly and are relatively few in number.

From a sound standpoint, Knight Online falls short of the bar again. While Knight Online does feature a well done orchestral soundtrack, it only features a couple of songs, which are played over and over. The overbearing combat music, in particular, will likely make you disable the music all together. Aside from the music, the sounds fit the game well enough with all manner of grunts, growls and thuds being present during combat; occasionally accompanied by a victorious tune when you gain a level. It’s nothing that gamers haven’t heard before, and resembles the sounds you’d hear in any other game of the MMORPG genre.

What saves Knight Online though, is its combat, which, while nothing revolutionary, controls well, and offers a different experience for each of the classes. Warriors, for example, have to prioritise potion usage because, as an innovative feature in Knight Online, players can only consume one potion at a time. This results in warriors having to consider which is more important at the moment, restoring health to prevent them from dying or using a mana potion to refill their mana and allow them to continue using special attacks. Thus, timing becomes the key factor of combat in Knight Online as skilled players time their animations with their potion uses. Rogues, in contrast, offer an entirely different set of tactics as they are able perform several melee attacks in quick succession, with skilled players using the attacks to “slide” along the ground, resulting in them ending their combo outside of the melee range of an enemy’s counterattacks. The controls further help Knight Online as it supports both the keyboard and mouse for movement, although the keyboard is admittedly quite a bit more sluggish at turning than the mouse, which will likely become most players preferred choice for movement. Once combat begins however, the keyboard takes over as skills and items can be assigned to number keys while hot keys are used to cycle through targets. The enemies which you fight also keep Knight Online interesting as the game basically throws every creature design it can think of at you as you will go from fighting earthworms and werewolves to death knights and dinosaurs; each with its own attacks and death animations. Admittedly, monster models designs get reused, but the sheer diversity of things you will get to fight makes up for the occasional reused monster model. The only problem with the diversity of the monsters is that their placement in the world really interferes with the pacing of the game. You’ll be fighting goblins in an early area of the game when a spot a Glyphodant, a large dinosaur a few meters away from a group of goblins. Naturally, you think that you should be able to take it down because after all, it’s in a beginner zone and right near a group of weak goblins, but upon attacking it you find yourself dead after a single blow. Monster placement is a problem that continually plagues Knight Online as creatures of wildly different strengths are placed in close proximity to one another and as a player, you have no way of figuring out their strength except through trial and error.

Of course you could always join a party of other players to take down tougher monsters, and in this regard Knight Online excels. Partying is encouraged in Knight Online, not only by featuring a full Party Lobby complete with descriptions and level requirements to join particular player parties, but by offering perks such as additional experience as well. Unfortunately, despite a well-made and accessible partying system, the biggest threat to interacting with other players is the language barrier. Simply put, over 50% of the player community of Knight Online are Turkish, and no matter how badly you want them to understand English, many of them don’t. Luckily, you can often get by with minimal communication when killing monsters, but when it comes to trading items or discussing strategies, it would be wise to have an English-Turkish translator program running. Translation problems aren’t just limited to other players however, as the game is plagued with misspelling that range from the annoying to the down right aggravating, as they occasionally misinform requirements for quests. Another option to circumvent communication issues is to join a clan, of which there are many strictly English speaking ones present. Not only can you then consistently form parties with which you can communicate; you also have the added perks offered by Knight Online’s extensive clan support. As your clan gathers points (generated through PvP), you receive more and more benefits. From a fancy cape to an armband, and even the ability to take part in castle sieges against other clans, Knight Online offers no shortage of things to do with your clan. Unfortunately, many of the activities you can do with your clan require several members to meet up at a set time, which can be difficult considering that for much of the day, Knight Online’s servers are closed to those playing for free. To get around this you have two options. On one hand you can log in at around 10 or 11 P.M and play then, or simply stay logged in till morning and play then. The other option is to buy a subscription, which ranges from $9 to $20 a month, and includes varying degrees of benefits. Cheaper subscriptions insure the ability to log in along with minor benefits such as an increase to the rate at which you gain experience, while the more expensive ones give you a greater degree of benefits such as a boost to all stats. For those wishing to invest more money into the game, Knight Online offers a Power-up Store where you can trade real money for a wide variety of things. This unfortunately gives an unfair advantage to those willing to invest more money into the game as players of identical class, equipment and skill will become unbalanced if one has a higher subscription fee. With that said, many players haven’t put a dime into this game and still manage to hold their own through practice and a mastering of the combat system for their class.

Sadly, outside of combat, the rest of the game is mostly just preparation and training for PvP. You face a steady levelling treadmill as you repeatedly kill monsters to gain experience and money (referred to as Noah in this game) which can be used to buy or upgrade equipment through Knight Online’s bare-bones crafting system. To upgrade an item you take it to an anvil where you purchase several kinds of upgrade scrolls. You then combine these scrolls one at a time with the item on the anvil, with each combining resulting in an improvement to the equipment if it succeeds, and the destruction of the item if it fails. This comes down to luck as you can fully upgrade an item one time and than have the next one be destroyed after only a couple of combinations. Of course you can always simply buy the items you are trying to upgrade from players with merchant stalls set up in major cities for each faction. Unfortunately, the player portion of the economy is so inflated that its common to find products priced in the hundreds of millions or even billions. Additionally, a final alternative exists in the Abyss dungeon, the only dungeon in Knight Online, but a multi-tiered one at that, which supports a wide range of creatures capable of some of the strongest items in the game, though, these monsters must often be taken down in a group.

Once you’ve finally got a hold of some good equipment and reached an admirable level, it’s time to head into one of the PvP arenas. Knight Online offers three choices for those interested in PvP. First, you can practice against other players of your own faction by challenging another player to duel. This teleports you immediately to a central lobby where you can enter an arena and fight against that player as well as anyone else in the lobby (players are also transported there by accepting a duel). Secondly, you can go to one of two warzone territories where both factions can enter and kill one another as well as the creatures there. The two territories attempt to reduce the player level gap, with one being for players in there 30s to 50s while the other is for those above that. While this does work to stop some of the outclassing from occurring, it is still entirely possible for a level forty-something player to be struck by a single blow from a player in their 50s. The result is that most players don’t end up spending much time in PvP combat until they have hit the level 50 mark and stand a chance against higher level players. The level cap is 80 however, so be aware that at some point most players will be out classed. The final option offered is a scheduled battle (known as wars) which will generally feature the first 300 or so players at a location at the agreed upon time. These players are than transported to a battlefield where some are made into generals and the two sides are tasked with killing one another. Ideally, sound tactics and formation combat win these battles, but because of the aforementioned language barrier and the sheer amount of players on screen at once, this usually just comes to a confused brawl as every player does their own thing.

In the end, Knight Online is an average fantasy MMORPG that, while it does have its perks, such as a well made combat system and numerous options for PvP, is bogged down by flaws. Mediocre graphics, a repetitive soundtrack, and the requirement that you pay a monthly fee in order to play whenever you want to, combine to make Knight Online an MMORPG that fails to stand out from the pack. Played as a free MMORPG, it stands up reasonably to other free games, but if you factor in the subscription cost required to play during daylight hours, it pales in comparison to other pay-to-play games out there.

Pros:

+Free

+Combat is well done

+Many options for PvP

+Money is easy to gain

Cons:

-Mediocre 3D graphics

-Repetitive soundtrack

-Translation Errors

-Servers are often full

-Lack of activities outside of PvP

-Inflation is huge in Player run Economy

Final Score: 5.5/10