MapleStory is fairly typical of fantasy based MMORPGs. It’s is based around exploring dungeons and battling monsters, while gathering Mesos (money) and experience points as well as items in order to level up. Monsters in MapleStory are never human, which is odd for an MMORPG, instead MapleStory will have you fight the undead, animals, plants, oozes and constructs. The MapleStory world consists of 4 large continents, common to all versions of MapleStory, complete with jungles, planes, mountains, tundra and more. The world is full of towns and cities to explore and interact with other players.  You can play a number of minigames with other players and the chat system is very entertaining considering the amount of expression you can make your character display while talking. MapleStory has a huge number of quests to go on, which centre mainly on overcoming obstacle courses, gathering resources, or defeating monsters and claiming items. When you start MapleStory you customize your character, however you don’t chose a class, instead you are given a beginner job to undertake, while you familiarize yourself with the game. Once you reach level 10 your able to chose your class; Warrior, Pirate, Magician, Thief or Bowman.

Despite having only 2 dimensions, MapleStory has a very engaging graphical style, reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons. The game world is bright and colorful. MapleStory has an extremely rich 3D backdrop, which changes as you move across the screen. The towns and cities in MapleStory are well defined and memorable. The characters themselves are extremely detailed, and hugely customizable.

MapleStory in game chat.

MapleStory is not without its faults. There is a lot of grind involved in leveling, and at higher levels it can take a good few weeks level up. You should always check the reward for your quest, they can sometimes be pitiful when considering what your tasked to do. The music in MapleStory is good for a while, but it gets repetitive, but luckily there’s a mute button.

Despite its faults, MapleStory is a fun game with charming graphics, you’ll meet decent people, see them talking about the oddest things, and the character you create will really grow on you.

City Of Heroes

From the start of any RPG game, players need to create their character for the game. The character creation in this game is as unique as the game itself as there are not many or any game like it. First, players have to choose from five Origins of where or what they were and are. Origins is mostly just story fill-in but they do limit the choices of Enhancements you can use. They also change the Villians you bump into and the types of enemies you face. City of Heroes tries to tie your story line in with your game play.

Then there are five Archetypes to choose from which will be explained further later, Players get to choose a set of primary and secondary powers,they have to make an avatar

City Of Heroes

and a costume for their Hero or Villain, lastly and uniquely players will create an individual battle cry and can make a background story for their character for the extras.

The gameplay is made of two things Archetypes and Origins, Origins are the type of enhancements that are limited to each origin to advance on and to be able to use them, Origins can be said to be powers that have different effects for different types of Villains and opposite faction. The five origins are Technology, Natural, Magic, Science and Mutation. Archetypes are classes in the game that effect the powers of the character of the players and the players style of gameplay, there are also five archetypes in which there are Controllers, Defenders, Scrappers and Tankers. In addition to archetypes there are also ‘Epic Archetypes’ which are more challenging and are for advanced players, they can be unlocked after reaching the required level.

Currently there are two Epics for Heroes and two for Villains, The Hero Epic Archetype is know

City Of Heroes

as ‘Kheldians’ in which the two main types are ‘Peacebringers’ and ‘Warshades’ who don’t get along so much, ‘Peacebringers’ and ‘Warshades’ are basically enemy to each other but both are actively working for the good but there are a certain faction called “Nictus” who are ‘Warshades’ that don’t want to do good but rather evil, For the Villains the Epics archetypes are known as ‘VEATs’ The two main types are “Blood Widow” and “Wolf Spider”.

Now the game world is basically like all the MMORPGs are about, In this game you can play free style and keep the butt’s of evil villains and NPCs (also evil) that you find or you can make your own small team like those from comics “X-men” or “Justice league” and take down big quests and epic Villains and monsters, The main goal is to protect the city or cause havoc in the city (for Villains), Random phenomenons occur in the game randomly, there are moments when a big Villain based organization is attacking the city or the a giant monster is destroying building wrecking havoc its all up to the heroes to save the city.

The game graphics are not so bad nor so good but they present the elements of imagination those of comic books consistence to bring in the environment from the eyes of Super Hero or

City Of Heroes

Villain, the game has a Badge system that allows players to have badges as a sign of performing actions that are not easy to do, Sort of Achievement system that allows players to have a competition between them. Other then goodies inside the game, there are goodies outside of game as well, Players can buy Boosters packs, powers and special limited costumes for a better experience of their enjoyment, Furthermore unlike other games the player’s Character isn’t deleted even after in activity the game grantees a players character would not be deleted even after 4 years of in activity.

The rest left for the players to explorer them selves, The game is unique to its class, it stands a 4 star out of 5.

The game is set on the original events from episode IV to episode V, The game was launched having 10 planets: Tatooine, Naboo, Corellia, Talus, Rori, Dantooine, Lok, Yavin IV, Endor, and Dathomir. More planets were added on the releases of the three expansions after its first release. Two of the new planets were Kashyyyk and Mustafar. In addition to planets, 12 space zones are also persent, there is also deep space which is usually a place for high level players and PvP (Player Versus Player) battles. The planets were well designed in respect to the film and were later improved to provide further details of the planets. Deep space is a very big area mostly containing space stations if near a planet and space debris and other anomalies.

The game features almost all the cameos from the film. Some points of interest for players would be R2-D2, C-3PO, their escape pod on Tatooine, the abandoned Rebel bases on Dantooine. Ewoks and Rancors are also present on their places to be battled with. The characters who are present in the game are Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Emperor Palpatine, Admiral Ackbar, Jan Dodonna, Boba Fett, Jabba, Borvo the Hutt, Bib Fortuna, Salacious Crumb, Captain Panaka, Max Rebo, Wedge Antilles, Gavyn Sykes, Watto, HK-47, Boss Nass etc. A mind blowing treat for Star War fans.

The gameplay consists of professions that can be chosen. In other words classes. The classes are Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Commando, Spy, Officer, Medic, Entertainer, Trader making the main classes of total nine but players can choose additional secondary professions from three categories. Before the class choosing, players have to select their species from ten different species which are as follows Human, Twi’lek, Zabrak, Wookiee, Trandoshan, Rodian, Mon Calamari, Bothan, Sullustan and Ithorian. Adding more choices to the game, one of the game expansions allows the players to pilot space ships which allows the players to choose ships from a lot of variety.

Coming to the Game Graphics the Online Game might seem old for its time but it was released five years ago, so at that time the game graphics were at top of the line. The graphics are still not that bad but not overly good either. The game combat system is mostly based to be First Person Shooter. Players can either make things automatic which has a downside to decreased experience gain but players can manually do the combat as well, making the game flexible for both type of players. In addition, players can place buildings of their own like vehicle repair garages, shuttle ports, cloning facilities, hospitals, cantinas etc where they can maintain, decorate and interact with other Online Game Players. Gameplay encourages realistic social behavior such as it’s player based economy and other real-life social phenomena like a complicated division of labor.

Overall the game is very complex with interactions. Those who like to sit hours and hours playing virtual Star Wars lives wouldn’t find any better game then Star War Galaxies. The game is one of the Best MMO’s ever to be created. Its a five star attraction.

The online game offers 12 classes to choose from divided into four familiar groups, Soldier, Mage, Priest and Rouge, further players can chose to have a hybrid of these class that suites the taste for those who want a piece of everything. This property of the role playing game not only makes it unique among other games but also give the a lot of diversity. Once chosen a class and race of your tastes your brought to the character details where you get to create details on your character from facial details to whole body details which a lot of people like since they like to have a unique character, but this might not make much difference when equipped with armor which would eventually cover most of your body. Still having the ability to take control of details to your likes is always nice to have in these types of games.

Depending on the which race you choose you begin in one of the following areas; the three kingdoms of Tortage, Cimmeria in the mountains of the north, the sun scorched Stygia to the south, or the plains of Aquilonia in the middle. Each area has its own territory for leveling. Like level 20 and the mid to the upper level 30. In these territories a lot of quests and missions can be received from the local Non Playing Characters (NPCs) and for the most part, the quests are the same as seen in other role playing online games like World of Warcraft. Quests like delivery, bounty to kill or collecting of certain items. Missions like these are abundant in the game however the game has a unique system for quest that is not normally seen in MMORPGs in that different quest can be chosen through different interactions through the dialogues and cuts scenes with NPCs. This doesn’t give the game a 5 star rank but does give the game a unique look for modern MMORPGs.

The game’s Combat system, comparative to other MMORPGs is a lot easier. Whether you play as a melee sword fighter or a mage spell caster, they both have abilities that will have effects on an area of effect rather then a selected target, meaning you can attack multiple gangs of enemy and do damage to them all. Not only does this make the game easier to play but has a lot of advantages for both the classes, for example if your melee units slashes a sword on a gang of enemies you can chop all of their heads in a single blow just by adjusting the right time of attack so that they can cover the fully length of your blade. Similarly, if a spell caster casts a healing spell on a ally group, his spell will effect all the members which are under the area of effect of the casted spell, making the game easy for those who find gaining experience in the game hard.

Finally for the Player Versus Player (PVP) part of the game you will find guilds filled with members who are hungry to slaughter those who get in their path and will defend their guilds against those who try to attack them for resources that they took from others or collected them selves. The PVP is kind of old world warfare for resources and land but the major disappointment in the game is the PVP doesn’t contribute to any rank that would give others reason to fight against each other for greater ranks but this is promised by the developers to be added soon.

Beyond the game’s details, the environments are extremely beautiful and detailed. The music and sound effects compliment the visuals in an even greater and spectacular way, the soundtrack and ambient effects are even better, the chirps of crickets during the night and the crackle noise of fire pits in the stone traders. All in all the game really gives a good environmental distinction to its fiction.

 WoW is a game that is bought from a store and players need to pay a monthly subscription to continue playing.  This differs from most other MMORPGs that are often buy once play online for free, or even browser based free forever games.  This model has proven increadibly fruitful for Blizzard as they are taking a monthly subsidy from each and every player that is playing their game.

Players of WoW can walk around the lands of Azeroth with thousands of other MMORPG players.  The lands are divided into two factions, Alliance and Horde.  These two factions have been at war since the dawn of time, and players need to pick a team which their character will play in for the lifetime of the character.

These factions are always at war, and one of the most important choices of a WoW player is if they want to be at war constantly in a Player vs Player (PVP) server or only be at war when in the battlefields in a Player vs Environment (PVE) server.

The next big decision that a World of Warcraft player needs to make is which of the 10 Races they wish their character to be.  Each race have different characteristics and special bonuses.  For instance the Gnomes have an “Expansive Mind” and gain an extra 5% intelligence.  The races are Humans, Trolls, Tauren, Orcs, Dwarves, Blood Elves, Draenei, Undead and Night Elves.

 There are 9 playable classes in World of Warcraft.  A player can chose a class that suits their personality, or role play a class that doesn’t suit their personality at all, to see if they like it.  Classes are up front and personal Warrior, spell and totem wielding Shaman, theif and shadowy Rogue, healer and confidant Priest, holyer than though Paladin, spell casting Mage, friend of the earth Druid, or Lich King breakaway Death Knight. 

Each class has many different abilities and spells and play the game completely different to other classes.  Warriors, Paladins and Death knights are often at the front of battle hacking and slashing away at their enemies and wearing heavy armour.  Mages and Warlocks stand at the back of combat, wearing little or no armour and casting spells or controling pets to do their battling for them.  Priests, druids and shamans are also at the back of the fighting, their roles are to heal the wounded, shield the main tank (usually a Warrior or Paladin) and keep the party alive.  Priests, Shamans and Druids are also classes who can ressurect their team mates if they die, so having one or more in your group is always a bonus.

World of Warcraft has a levelling system.  You start at level 1 and as you do quests and increase your experience you gain levels.  Each new level provides more player stats (like strength, dexterity, stamina, intelligence, spirit), and also unlocks new spells and abilities to be used by the player.

Travelling around Azeroth you can play by yourself, do quests given to you by nearby NPCs (Non Playing Characters) or group with up to 5 people to do quests together.  Quests might include killing a number of nearby beats, or delivering information or an item to another NPC player.  Quests are varied and sometimes complicated and are the best way to understand your characters abilities and faults.

At the higher end of the game, you can join a guild and go and attack dugeons with up to 40 players in a group.