Lineage II Review

Here we go yet again with another massively multi-player wallet sucker, Lineage II. The title implies there was a prequel but don’t ask me I’ve never heard of it. You heard this story before, you are some guy who decides to pick up a sword and defend his country from some big-headed goblin thing, a wolf, a rabbit, and some other random woodland creatures. For all you out there looking for a MMO with a story you are in the wrong place, there is nothing telling you why you are killing all those cute bunnies and wolves, no cinematics, no disembodied voice, you just appear in a temple with a lot of gremlins, and you have a sword; you can do the math.

You’re probably telling yourself “well those temples and things have to look good right?� Just stop, they look as generic as possible; from the moment you are thrown into this world you feel like you’ve been here already. While the graphics aren’t bad, they just don’t inspire much, with a lot of darker colors, all the races seem depressed and angry. Believe me, when I tell you that this has all been done before with the forests, the castles, and meadows that just feel uninspired. All the towns look the same and have the same NPCs in them. Making it even harder to navigate this world was the fact that my map wouldn’t work for three weeks. Armors and costumes also all seem familiar; you’ll upgrade and look basically the same but maybe a little more padding. The feel of this game is just lowered by its look with a lack of pretty things to look at and the feeling that you’ve run around that big oak tree three times.

I don’t want to spend too much time on sound because there really isn’t much of it; you have your sword clinks and clanks, mystically spell sounds, and bow strings. There isn’t much. But you want to know about the music right, to which I reply “what music?� Yes there is music but it is so infrequent that it is not even worth it. It will come up during combat, maybe, and when you walk into a town; that’s pretty much it for that topic.

Gameplay is really strange and the only place where they tried something new for an MMO. For all of you who claim WASD suck try these controls. You use your mouse for movement; yes your mouse, point and click. Sure you can turn on your keyboard but that makes you feel like you are controlling your character through a big puddle of mud, you turn slowly and it looks like you are walking while turning. Now imagine swimming with point and click; it doesn’t work too well and you’ll most likely drown. Then there’s combat, which is you auto attack until you use a skill, which isn’t bad except as a fighter you get 3 attack skills until level 20. That’s a long time to wait to kick some ass.

In-game chat sucks but they did allow you to use your MSN messenger account while being logged on, but who uses MSN? There are very few quests, and you can sit down in town and turn yourself into a store. One more thing: you can be walking around kill werewolves then some level 75 jerk comes out of no where and cuts your face off. Yeah, that’s right you can be killed by anyone, anytime, except in towns. This sounds like fun until you’re fighting a big bear and someone wants the loot and kills you for it. Not cool at all.

We’ve already been over creativity numerous times, and length is long, I guess. There are plenty of people still playing, so you can make friends and get into it. There are some hard quests and raids, but good luck getting through them without being labeled a newb. For its lack of creativity, this one gets a mediocre score. Save yourself some frustration and join me in World of Warcraft or City of Heroes.