"Asherons call: The Good, the bad and the ugly"

Unlike what appears to be a number of the reviews I have played the game a lot and feel Some things need clarified and explained. First is the cost. Cost for the game is 20$ and includes a free month. Monthly cost is 9.95 so the game costs you 10 bucks really.

Now the good things about AC include monthly updates, a running month to month story line with so much lore even die hards have enough to read, so much to do or can be done in game you should never be bored. Between quests for whatever levels, working within your clan(if you join one) or just simply touring the country side there is a lot to do. There are a lot of people that are more than willing to help new people get on their feet and if you join a clan you get more help.

Graphics are good and while the sound can be improved it is not that bad.

Character creation is fairly easy altho reading the little manual you get with the game would be a good idea it is possible to just jump in and go with it. You can easily redo any character in case you dont like what you set up so have fun.

Each player has a great deal of control in what your character can do with multiple weapon classes (sword, dagger, unarmed combat, staff and thrown weapons) as well as 4 very different schools of magic.

There are also a number of trade skills like cooking, fletching etc that can make special items and are a good aid for other players.

Each account gets 5 different characters, and you can design any of them how you want so it is easy to check out all the fun stuff with very little effort.

While the magic contains a lot of spells once you are playing the game they make sense and are easy to use.

Multiplayer interaction inside the game is one of the greatest aspects of the game whether trying to trade or sell equipment or hunting and questing, doing it with people you know is a lot of fun. The commands to talk to others are easily remebered and become second hand very fast

On the bad side there are some people in the game that cause others grief but they are usually easily avoidable and a player that pays attention learns who they are.

There are also a number of operational problems within AC including problems with the new housing just implemented and the fact that housing is very hard to get but a determined player can get housing.

On the ugly side of AC are problems created by the monthly updates causing servers to be down at times for a full day but this usually is limited to once a month at most. Also there are players who are incapable of working for what they get in the game and need to hack the game to get what they want sometimes causing the server to go down however the developers of the game are cracking down hard on them and a large number of them have been banned.

I have tried other games that are out and have always come back to AC. It is definitely the best online game out there, one of the cheapest and even with the problems a great all around experience.

If you want a game where meeting new people, doing fun stuff with them, never getting bored, complete control of your character developement is what you want give AC a try. If not play something else.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/29/01, Updated 12/29/01