Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings

"It's a miracle."

This game had so much wrong with it at release, but has been completely transformed into what I believe is the best thing out there at the moment. Before people would reach the maximum level in two months and have nothing to do. Many of the exploits of the game were taken out (perching, doing quests higher than the intended level, etc). Now leveling is a bit more consistent and a new island has been added for people over the level of 45. Not to mention that you can now level a character to 150 via the 'Hero' system. Half of the skills did not even work when this game was release, now they do. Before, the crafting in the game completely sucked and required hours of tedious searching for crafting trophies dropped from random monsters. Now crafting has been completely rewritten into a robust package to encourage the 'player driven economy' that is touted on the box, where crafters have to rely on and work with each other to achieve their goals.

Kingdom versus kingdom combat has started to see more emphasis with 'raids' that you can do on other kingdom fortresses every few days for decent experience. This kvk dynamic encourages teamwork and seperates the kingdoms in a way that didn't exist before.

The graphics are still what I consider the best in any MMORPG I have played. The downside to this is that, even though the game was written two years ago, it requires a pretty hefty system to run at full detail and high resolution textures. However, the game is still very playable on a sub-par system.

One of the things that I really like about this game is that there aren't 'countless' numbers of other people on the server. Each server can handle up to about 2000 at maximum load. This allows you to get to know other people in the game and also make a name for yourself instead of being lost in the crowd. At the moment the populations numbers aren't all that great, around 800 at peak time on the non-pvp servers(although they support pvp combat in the kindom and ffa areas). Turbine has remained optimistic and dedicated to the game, however. They have bought the rights to the game back from Microsoft and are working on a new marketing campaign to promote the game. I for one hope it works, not just because I play the game, but because I want others to enjoy it as much as I have.

Overall, a wonderful improvement and is now a great game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/04