Anarchy Online

"The premise behind Anarchy Online sounds solid, but it fails to deliver."

Far away, on the mysterious world of Rubi-Ka, two factions battle for control of a planet rich in value. The massive, faceless corporation of Omni-Tek fights for the financial gain while the Clans fight for freedom of all people on Rubi-Ka.

Sounds good, doesn't it? It's a pity FunCom has no idea how to run a storyline beyond the box description. Sure, they can think up original and compelling storyboard and build a game around it, but in the end they fail to back up their ideals with solid plot development. FunCom promised ''game-master (GM) run events that would progress the storyline'' -- I've yet to see or experience a single GM run event that has enjoyable results. The single event I've experienced required grid access and the ability to take extreme punishment from monsters player's should never even think of fighting. The end result of this event? A bloody battlefield strewn with human corpses, forgotten pulse rifles, and destroyed implants.

Another major downside to Anarchy Online would be it's trade skill system. Every solid MMORPG on the market has a well-developed trade skill system, where players can forge their own weapons or armors. This provides an excellent alternative to slaying monster after monster. Anarchy Online - like every PR department - promises such a system. In the end, it fails to deliver. Over one year after the release of the game the trade skill system is still as buggy and unreliable as on the launch day. You will often come across trade skill system items; barrels, computer chips, chemicals, etc., etc. However, the only way to use these items would be to sell them to vendors or simply toss them in the trash. Sure, fixers can (and need to if they have any hopes of getting past the training grounds) rig together a mauser, but that’s about it.

Think that’s bad? We're just getting started. The player-versus-player (PvP) system in the game is unbalanced and painful to watch. Trying to experience the PvP combat first hand is like getting your teeth pulled. I realize its incredibly difficult for a company to perfect a PvP system in a massively multiplayer online game, but this is ridiculous! There are so many ways to exploit the system that you'll want to stay as far away from it as possible.

Add one more downside to an already buggy game: the mission system. It sounds like a good idea. A player can drop by any terminal, request a mission, complete said mission, return and collect a hefty reward. However, after a player completes the first few missions of their carrier they will find them unbelievably repetitive. Each mission will take you indoors. Once inside, you will be required to either 'kill' or 'retrieve'. Its basically a room full of hostile monsters and one way to complete it... fighting through all the monsters. You may receive a token after a mission, depending upon how many monsters you killed during the mission (ie: five out of ten monsters will give you a fifty precent chance of reciveing a token, while killing ten out of ten will ensure your token), which you can pin on your jacket. After collecting so many tokens you will receive a permanent boost in stats. This is another unbalanced issue with the game. Players who decide to endure this torture to collect tokens will have an advantage over sane players who stay far away from it in PvP combat.

Despite Anarchy Online's flaws, there are still a few good points. Visually the game is pretty impressive, especially considering it's time. The massive cities and rolling wastelands are very believable. They community surrounding Anarchy Online is also full of some pretty cool people. There are a lot of clans inside the game that boast friendly players, from heavy role-players to your casual monster killing group. The sound files, albeit few and far, are very good. The ambient noises and weapon sounds are fitting to the time period and add a deep element to the game.

For it's time Anarchy Online was good. Probably because it was the only science fiction-based MMORPG on the market at the time. However, with different and more balanced titles on the market boasting a science fiction universe you're best off to avoid Anarchy Online.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/02, Updated 09/17/02