"~Frustrating~"

Online multiplayer games have always been a blast for me. They're sort of like interactive chat rooms, where you not only get to talk to people from around the world, but get to fight monsters alongside them as well. I'm an especially big fan of fantasy multiplayer games. Traveling through strange, exotic lands with a friend(s) is something I've dreamed about since I was a kid.

Which is why I was immediatly interesting when I read about Dark Ages on a message board. I visited the Dark Ages website and was intrigued even more by the screen shots and description that Nexxon gave for their game.

I downloaded it, and I must admit that I was very impressed with the game during the 5 day free trial. Sure, the graphics were nothing compared to UO or EverQuest, but graphics were never all that important to me, and the ones in Dark Ages get the job done well enough.
At the end of the 5 days I forked out the 15 dollars required to register for one month. I would have paid for three months, but there were a few things about the game that bothered me during the 5 day trial, and so I decided that discretion was the better part of Valor.

Boy was I ever right. . .


Graphics: 6
Like I said before, the graphics in DA get the job done very well. They're colorful, with a respectable amount of detail (i.e. when you put on different clothing it shows that clothing on your character, like in UO). Some of the mundanes (NPCs like shop owners) look very bland and uninteresting, but for the most part the graphics in DA are solid (so long as you aren't expecting to be amazed by graphic beauty).

Sound: 1
The sound in DA is almost nonexistant. You've got your basic attack sound (which plays for every kind of physical attack, from slashing with a sword to slapping with a hand), and your basic spell sound (which plays for every spell, from healing to 100th level fire attack). I can't remember any other sounds besides those two, which should give you a pretty good idea of just how much DA sucks in this area.

Music: 6.5
On the other hand, the music in DA is quite good, if not completely memorable. Some of the songs can get irritating after a while though, but then again you can always turn off the music. . .

Gameplay: 3
Ouch! The gameplay in DA is what really made me regret having forked out 15 bucks for it. Read on to find out why. . .

Combat: 1
Well it, uh, sucks. There really isn't much else to it. It is flawed at every level. It is boring, it is unimaginative, it is mind numbingly repetative, and it's more work then play. In fact, it's all work. There is nothing fun about the combat in DA, even though it is the only practical way of gaining level. Sure, you get experience points for a great many things other then fighting, but by the time you reach your 30th or 40th level, the tiny little bit of ep you get for polishing a gem or tailoring a tunic won't even make a microscopic dent in the amount of experience points you'll need to reach the next level.
So what exactly is wrong with combat in DA?
Everything.
First of all, the whole combat system of DA is just plain limited. Your character and the monsters he (or she) fights can only move in four directions. Couple this with the fact that you can beat every single (or atleast all the ones I've encountered, and I've encountered alot) with the same exact strategy (depending on what class you're playing as).
For example, if you're a Rogue you just have to keep laying traps (which you have an unlimited supply of for some reason) in front of a monster as it comes towards, and the dumb thing'll just keep walking over them until it is dead.

This is because every monster is exactly the same in it's abilities and the way it acts. Every monster casts spells (with the exception of the ones you will first encounter), which is just plain stupid in my opinion. How the hell could an Ogre have the intelligence to hit me with a spell that takes away 1500 of my hit points!? Even animals like gigantic Bumble Bees and equally large Spiders can cast fairly powerful attack magic.
Which brings us to another point: Combat in DA isn't just difficult, it's almost impossible unless you have a buddy with you to watch your back and revive you if you get mortaly wounded. The physical attacks of the monsters are fair enough in power, but the magical attacks. . .
Well, lets just say that even early on (like when your character has just reached his 16th level) the spells that hostile creatures throw at you are powerful enough to kill you in two hits, and I've seen monsters cast two spells on a single player in under 8 seconds. This means that it isn't just a good idea to ''hunt'' with other people, it's practicly required for your survival!
So in other words, for you to be able to hunt and gain levels, you have to sit around and wait for someone who is almost the exact same level as you (if one of the people hunting has too high a level, he/she will absorb most of the ep!). Then you have to convince them to hunt with you.
This isn't too bad, but what if I really want to gain a level and there is no one around to hunt with me?
As if all this wasn't bad enough, later on the battles get so hard that you are practicly required to have these two rings (Emeralds) for you to be an effective combatant.
You must have these rings, which give you 500 hp each along with a bonus to your attack damage, to be able to do anything worthwhile in combat. Priests and Wizards (by the way, did I mention that there are only five different character classes in DA?) won't find much use for them, but they are precious to the Rogue and Warrior classes.
Unfortunetly, they are extremely hard to find. There are a few Rogues out there who are high enough in level to be able to smith Emerald Rings, but only one shop in the entire world of DA sells them, and it only sells one each day(!!!).
This means that unless you've got connections with a rogue that can smith Emeralds, you're basicly screwed combat wise, because that extra 1000hp makes all the difference in a fight--especially if you're a warrior.
As you can see, the whole combat system in DA is grossly unfair to players, and whoever thought it up needs to have both of his legs broken.


Just about everything else in DA sucks almost as bad as the combat. Their are a few impressive features in the game, like how players can become judges and guards of a city (just to name a few positions of power that players can attain). But this only leads to another flaw in the game: The dependance on players to keep the game playable and enjoyable. Almost everything in DA, even things that could easily be handled by NPCs, must be run by or overlooked by a player.
Want to become a Warrior and finaly rid yourself of those unsightly peasent clothes? Well, you'll have to find yourself a warrior who is willing to take the time to lead you through the whole initiation process.
Of course, you'll also need to find yourself a mentor, or you'll miss out on a lot of free goodies (like 6 Emerald Rings). So you'll have to find a player who is willing to take the time to mentor you, and tell you how to fight, and equip you with weapons and armor, and make sure you don't die, and take you to a priest to get your death scar (called a ''sgrios scar'' in the game) removed if you do die.
This may sound kind of fun, and some players (including myself) do enojy mentoring. Unfortunetly, since the only way for a newbie to get initiated into a particular class is to have an older player do it for him.
This means that you can have as many as a dozen ignorant newbies messaging a single player, begging him/her to initiate them, or mentor them, or tell them where they can get that ''kool'' armor that I'm wearing.
Like many other things in DA, it's just unfair that players who want to enjoy this game have to go through all of this stupid @#$% because the people who made this game were too shallow to think that ''Maybe putting all of this responsibility and work on to the shoulders of paying customers might cut into time that might have been spent having fun?''

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/00, Updated 02/13/00