Anarchy Online Review (no fat)

Game Description

The futuristic world of Rubi-Ka is torn between conflict and cosmetic peace efforts. While the mega-corporation known as Omni-Tek tries to subdue the ever doubting Rebels, the espionage, deceit and war haunt the peoples of this land.

Anarchy Online Gameplay

The theme of the game is designed to push towards a full scale war for the domination of the planet. During the early phase of character creation, you can either choose to line up with the forces of Omni-tek or the Rebel clans, or remain neutral if it suits you better. However, you can switch your allegiance later as the storyline progresses.

Players are required to choose a particular class and race. With only four races on offer, MMO fans might think the choices to be too limited. However, the limitation with the races is quickly out of your mind when you start to build your character’s profile.

Anarchy Online's Avatar Creation

Contrary to many other MMORPGs, the characters customization process of Anarchy Online, takes place within an in-game laboratory. You choose a class, then the face and body details and later go on to specify your character’s name. Just as you exit the lab, you are required to opt for a specific faction or stay neutral in the conflict between Omni-Tek and the Rebels.

The character customization process of Anarchy Online is different from other games. You can choose from a large quantity of armor, clothing, and weapons, to make your character look different from all the others and have a personality of its own.

Anarchy Online's Player Assets

Weapons ranging from blunt weapons to melee knives and other bladed weapons to pistols, rifles, and even grenade launchers are readily available. Players can upgrade items, by combining them with other items, and make a diverse variety of new items as well. However, you have to be at a certain skill level before you can use the higher bracket weapons so veterans are rewarded for their efforts.

Also, there are expensive vehicles that can be purchased if you can come up with the money to buy them. To add a further dimension to the game, players have the luxury to own their own apartments.

Anarchy Online's Missions

Anarchy Online’s mission package is very flexible and quite unique. The missions are based on the storyline of the game and you can get missions from drones all over Rubi-Ka. It is up to the player to choose the difficulty level of each mission and the genre the mission belongs to; assassination, spying on someone, retrieving an item or simply repairing a radar system. You’ll be briefed on the rewards you can expect from the mission as well. Though the missions are still not as exciting as they have the potential to be, the game has a good system of offering them.

You can take on solo missions or pay a small fee to get your mission key duplicated so you can complete the mission along with a band of players. This takes long waits to bag a mission out of the equation, and makes gameplay more cohesive on the whole. You also have the option of engineering your own missions and having others do the dirty work for you.

Anarchy Online's Insurance Booths

The game has a time saving way of healing players so there are less time outs for resting and healing and more action in the game. Players can heal through medical kits rather than wait or rest to heal completely.

For in-game deaths, insurance booths are spread all over Rubi-ka where players over level 6 can insure their characters so they don’t lose experience points if they come out second best in a fight. Once dead, the player returns to the nearest reclaim booth. His items are returned to him and the experience will go down to the level when he was last insured.

Anarchy Online – The ‘Nanos’

The spell system of fantasy MMOs appears in Anarchy online as Nanos. A Nano is a program that is uploaded to a character’s profile and different character types have different Nanos. Your character can possess several Nanos at once and can use them accordingly such as for defense. The thing that inhibits Nanos is your character’s memory chip, which can be upgraded to store more in the top floor.

Anarchy Online's Non Combat Lifestyle

There are vendor machines in Rubi-Ka but when you look to buy something its almost always economical to buy from other players. There are lots of non-combat aspects of the game that spur the economy of Rubi-Ka in addition to the mission rewards.

Anarchy Online Sound

The music supports the atmosphere of the game. The background music changes according to the environment and situation. On the whole, the music is not something gamers will get bored of in a hurry.

Anarchy Online Graphics

As for the graphics, the game boasts high quality graphics which capture the imagination of the gamer. The game environment changes from time to time, the weather changes make for great viewing. The skies present a different view each night with the three Rubi-Ka moons moving through the sky on some days, while the clouds take over on other occasions.

Anarchy Online's disappointments

Immediately after the initial release of the game, technical issues and bugs made the game practically unplayable. Constant crashes, and lots of in-game bugs were later fixed. However, there problem with the lag persisted for some time. A whole list of patches, have done the game a lot of good, clearing up the mess created by the bugs.

Anarchy Online – Summing Up

Anarchy Online made waves as a game that brought MMORPGs out of fantasy environments, and then it went on to cope lots of slag for its infamous post release breakdowns and bugs. Over the time, with persistent patches, patching up the bugs and the lag, Anarchy Online has become what it set out to be; unique.

Anarchy Online - Cost

Anarchy Online currently is free for the original game, and $9.95US to upgrade to all three expansions. It then costs $12.95US a month to play. You can play the original AO without the expansions for free though, as long as you wish.