"A great and immersive game"

Although Anarchy Online has some problems, it is still a great game overall. There is an overlying plot line, but it is not forced on you at all. You can choose to follow the plot line or not. I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who likes MMORPGs, or who would like to try a good one.

Graphics: Although the game is a bit dated, the graphics are still very nice. And the new Shadowlands expansion adds a good deal of content, and a good deal of amazing graphics. There are many amazing scenes that truly look awesome, and the next expansion that is going to come out this summer will add even more amazing graphics, with alien spaceships, and aliens.

Sound: The sound in this game is very well done. There are a lot of interesting songs that play in the background, and the sound effects on weapons and spells (aka nanos) are very cool sounding as well. The game is not lacking much in the sound department.

Lag / Bugs: This is what most people who play an MMORPG really care about. The lag in Anarchy Online is not very bad, there are a good deal of servers and they can handle a lot of players without the lag getting very bad. You can play the game on a dialup connection with a small amount of lag. And, if you have broadband and a decent computer (>1.0 ghz and a recent graphics card) you will pretty much run into no lag even if you run anarchy online in a window, and for
higher end systems you can run two copies of anarchy online with no problem. And for the bugs in the game, they are all fixed very rapidly, once someone reports a bug the team at funcom works fast to figure out how it happens and fix it quickly. Also, the in-game support is an awesome team of volunteers who are very helpful.

Gameplay: The gameplay itself is very fun, and interesting. There are lots of quests that you can generate, that are not too repetitive, they have a different dungeon each time, like the diablo 2 system, except that you can generate as many missions as you want. There is an ongoing war between the two sides in the game, omni and clan, and you can participate in battles and wars for towers. And you can also explore and advance in "the Shadowlands," a humongous world added by the Shadowlands expansion, in addition to the original world.

Overall: Basically to give a summary, the game is very good, I would highly recommend it to anyone, and you can get a free trial for seven days to see whether or not you like it. So you really have nothing to lose. The rating I gave it overall is a 9, and this was based on a holistic view and not averages. And, I would also like to add that, many of the problems that occured in the past were fixed quickly and now do not exist. So don't listen to the stories of launch day horrors.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/04