Anarchy Online

"This IS Anarchy Online, the best, well almost!"

I am going to be totally direct with this stuff and I’m going to tell you that this is not an RPG just to let you know what you are buying. It is actually a MMORPG, as it is said in the name or title of the game, you play the game by being online with other players. You can chat with them, talk to them, hunt with them, and the best is that you can fight with them. A whole bunch of things that normal RPGs have will not be featured in the game, that can be fortunate or unfortunate, depends on how you look at it. Once you get into the game, it is actually a very fun and dynamic game that requires a lot of skill to get through it all. But still, there are a whole bunch of fans that are not totally happy about this game.

The story of the game takes place in the year 29475, so that means that you and I will be dead before this really happens. Humans by that time have already left the earth and have colonized galaxies, that is what we dream of now. On the planet Rubi-Ka which is located on the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Hypercorporation Omni-Tek just found a tresure, a very valuable treasure, a trove of rare minerals! The rarest and most valuable of all minerals is definitely not gold nor diamond, but Notum, which is used to be able to create nano bots that are needed in the Nano Technology. This technology uses hordes of nano bots that are surprinsingly small, extremely small, to do things and stuff at the moleculor level, and with that material, the Omni-Tek (OT) became millionaries. After colonizing the planet with the Ex Mars miners, the OT made a whole bunch of money, so much that the number is just inimaginable to anyone alive now or by then. But because of the awful treatment that was given to the miners, a group of miner left the OT, and when those news were knew a flame grew, and developed so much that it became a fire. This fire is called or are known as the Rebel Clans. The story is a lot more than just this since this is just the beginning and the story is just told with the main idea. But you can pick which allegiance you want to be yours.

This game’s battle system is the standard MMORPG system of fighting, there is nothing new and nothing has changed, just the same old stuff. And since the game is played online, the posibility of a turn based combat has just been disabled never to return, and replacing that, real time gameplay has come to life. In auto battle all you do, basically, is target the target to hit and use the special abilities you have whenver you have them in yor possession to use them. If you are a Nano Technician you are able to hanle and manipulate, and cast the Nano Formulas, and if you haven’t ever played this game then, if you don’t know those things are just the name of spells but in a more sophisticated name for the game. But there is really nothing new nor special about fighiting in the game since it is totally the same thing.

At first, the interface of the game is foreboding and really clunky, but you will eventually get used to it. Beneath the interface, there is a little amount of information that is available so that you can see it and customize it, and after all that use it at the way you plaese to use it. The music of thie game is totally and extremely gorgeous. The music during a battle invigorates you to keep battling and defeat your enemy with no mercy, the music while in the forest gives you a sensation of charm and every other music is just great with the background and gameplay and everything else, it is simply great, if you have played this game yet, then you must know what I am talking about. The sound effect are just like in any other game I have played so far apart from those that are 1000 years old, but for a game being released by now, they are pretty good.

After playing this game you can see that this game is not like the others that you have played so far since it is a original game. For noobies in this game, this game is the first Sci-Fi MMORPG, all of the other ones are just basically swords and sorcery just like Zelda, but that game is an RPR and it is just so much better than this one but that’s not the point, there are also other games which are of sungeons and dragons, and medieval fantasy such as the all popular game Final Fantasy. Now, this game is the first MMORPF to have a storyline that can change with each player and meaning that there can be no definite walkthrough about it unless the maker has played it during thousands of hours and wrote about it in every possible storyline. Most of the other game just seem goos by having a unique story, and this story is unraveling at this moment, but the first impressions are extremely great, which are the ones that really matter. Another proof that this game is original is the one and only class system. In each and ecery level you get an undefined amount of IP points, which are used to be able to raise the skills that you have. The cost of IP points to be able to raise the skills that you have depend on the class you are in, and also on the level you are in. There is also a cap that shows how many times you can raise each of your skills in each level.

The interaction between each player is very well handled in this game. Funcom took up another step in this game that it did not tool in other MMORPGs of this kind of category. Nostly all of the online games will allow you to speak and then your actions will be taken through your words, for example, “Kill that guy”. However, in this game, some actions can be performed by typing in /whateveryouwant. Some of this actions are /strongl, /crossarms ect. The interaction of player to player is much better with the extra option of being able to have organizations of your own, or if you prefer clans. Orgs are for the OT and clans are for the rebel clans, which can be either temporary od permanent teams that are usually used to hunt, usually you go hunting monsters and mutants, but you can also hunt other players, be careful not to be hunted.

Some people think that in this game the is absolutely nothing to do or play, but actually there is a lot of things to do. The basic purpose of this game is to hunt monsters and mutants on the mainland to be able to get experience points and after doing so, complete some missions in between the level there are in change of money which is used to upgrade your weapons and your armor too. After a while you will get bored of doing this stuff over and over again, but it is very much worth it. The Player vs Player mode, or the VS mode is very fun to play in this game once you learn, by yourself or by asking help, once you learn how to and also how to play well this mode.

The once thing that makes Anarchy Online bad, is the same thing as a lot of online games, bugs. Even though it has a whole bunch of bugs, Anarchy Online has hired a specialized group that exterminates the bugs in the game, and there are being less bugs every single day that passes. However, Rumors have spread that each patch that is suppossed to destroy the bugs, contain bugs themselves, but as you are wasting your time reading this review that will make you want this game more, those bugs are also being fixed. At this moment the game has improved a whole lot than when it started. The bug that is on every single online game is called Network Latency and has been dubbed Lag. This bug consists of a slowdown in the game that is caused by bandwidth overload by the server. This bug is in every single online game but it is especially bad in this one since everyone cranned into the two servers, and since this only has two servers and the other games have like fifteen, well I think it is obvious why is worse here.

The graphics that this game contain are extremely great, but that depends on your PCs capability but it is still great, of course that I am talking about being outside. The graphics consist of textures that were very well designed with a whole bunch of details, landscapes that are just beautiful, and a whole bunch of enemies to fight against. The players are even well formed unlike in other games which are anything but a specific form. But there is still something bad about this, the dungeons in each mission which are like thousands of thos in each mission are very bland. And you spend almost the same time inside these dungeons and you spend outside of the dungeons and outside of the missions. If it weren’t for the dungeon’s bad graphics, this game would absolutely have the best graphics ever!

The difficulty that Anarchy Online has was not well regulated since in hard mode and easy mode, no big difference. Since someone that just got into the game would really think that this game is easy, you don’t know the reality. Everything that you can do extremely gets get after you finally hit the level 100 of the difficulty level, all the enemies will have new attack and spells, they will be much agile, and much harder to kill, and a whole bunch of other stuff that will definitely make you change your mind about this game being easy because it is actually real hard.

During the last few pharagraphs I have said the pros and cons of this game, and at the end it is actually and very cool and nice game that gets better every second that passes. I play it very often when there is nothing to do or when I don’t want to play any other game. If you can stand all the bugs that Anarchy Online has, then this game will definitely be one of your favorite.

My overall score that I am giving to this game is an 8 out of 10 which means that I think that it is about 80% perfect, it is 4/5 perfect, it is almost there!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/02, Updated 12/14/02