Wednesday, October 1, 2008

WAR!


My family visitors have been and gone now, and during their visit I got the chance to try Warhammer Online, so as promised – here are my thoughts on WAR!
System Demands:
First off – I need a PC upgrade. I am stuck running the game at something like 1700 x 1100 resolution, (a bit demanding for my PC, but cant lower it.) overall the graphical settings are set quite reasonable and the game looks pretty good – but everything other than my graphics card is so out of date, the pc struggles regardless.
For any interested here is my system:
AMD 3700Xp
Asus An8-Sli deluxe Motherboard
1Gb PC3200 RAM
37" HDTV (running 1080p)
Graphics:
From a visual perspective, the game looks a lot like EQ2 – its got similar looking textures and colour palette from what I can remember of it. Its certainly not bad, but it’s a far shout from Crysis graphics, and I prefer Wows if I must be honest.

Game play:
The game feels like a good blend of Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft. The UI is WOW. The screen messages and graphics are EQ2 and many of the implemented features (Im looking at you, “Flee!”) are straight out of SWG.

Overall impression:
The character I chose to try this out with was a Black Orc. (Basically a greenskin tank – and from what I gather the closest to the traditional tanking class you get on the Destruction side.) I chose this character for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was ugly. I knew I was not going to have a pretty character, and decided to make one ugly brute. He looks like he has tanked with his face on many an occasion. Secondly, the Orcs + Gobbos have always been the comic relief in Warhammer, and I figured it might be entertaining. So far it has not disappointed. In my experience its also the most Role-played race on the destruction side. You find when you interact with someone – be it party, local chat or a whisper – “You and da boyz speak like dis!”

The quests that I have done so far have been entertaining and quite humorous. Public quests are an awesome implementation. I see them being problematic down the line when a newbie has to try to do them on their lonesome, but at this point, there is usually enough people running around an area with a public quest that when the “grind” stages are done there is enough people to take down the bosses and get themselves some nice Loots!

PVP scenarios remind me so much of counterstrike but with a third person button mashing perspective. It’s entertaining, but against “dem stunties” – it’s a tough show. (So many Rune Priests!!)

Whilst it is a very good game standalone, it doesn’t grasp me as much as WOW does. I have been given free access to my mothers account as long as she is not logged in, so I have been enjoying slowly doing the quests and exploring, but I don’t see me getting too far involved. In my opinion it is a nice break from WoW – will get a good sized population as it is a great standalone game, but in my opinion, is far from being a wow-killer. It’s a completely different feel of game.

I would give it an 8/10 – with wow being a 9/10. It is strong on PVP, roleplay, and exploration value. All in all though, pretty damned good.

Note: My opinion may swing either way as time goes by and I start doing higher end content, and get used to the game mechanics. Expect more updates if I continue to play.


-Velk

No comments: