RuneScape

"Better than most online games"

Runescape is a fun online game to play. Like the well known computer game "The Sims". you can create your own character and determine how s/he looks, wears, hair color, etc. Also, your character will have a name, but that name will be exactly what your user name for Runescape is. For instance, if your screen name was something like "Biker2004" (don't worry, that's not mine) then that's what your character's name would be.

After you've customized your character, you then head into the tutorial where you're taught all the basics of Runescape. There are many skills on Runescape, and you have to learn how to use every single one. The Tutorial is a little boring at first, but once you get through it, you're equipped to go into the world of Runescape.

Once you begin playing, you start off in the center of the town of Lumbridge. From there, you decide your fate. Although now, you don't have a penny to your name. However, it helps that you get to keep the basic stuff you got in tutorial. This stuff includes bread, arrows, a bow, maybe a couple of runes (things you cast spells with) some weapons, etc. To pretty much do anything at first, you have to make money. To make money at first, I killed things. Lying around Lumbridge are ordinary women and goblins, who you can kill. If you attack something, a battle will begin.

Battles happen very frequently on Runescape. To start a battle, you choose an opponent you want to attack. (or, if the enemy is aggressive and has a higher level, than it can attack you) Once that is done, you will immediately see your character and the enemy fighting. If your character has a weapon, that will do more damage than it would if you were fighting with your bare hands. Also, armor makes you take less damage if you're wearing it. Above you and your enemy is a meter that marks how much health you both have left. Once one of those meters is completely red, whoever is under it dies. If your enemy dies, it usually drops bones and a few items to go along with it.

A main thing in the game which would earn people your respect is your combat level. Your combat level is really what level your character is. When you're fighting, you can choose to combat in one of three ways: strength, attack, and defence. You choose how you want to attack, and every time you attack and hit on that mode, you earn experience points for that mode. For example, if you were fighting on strength mode, every time you did any damage at all to an enemy, you'll get points under strength. Once you get enough points, you go up a strength level. Once you go up enough strength levels (or any other of the two modes, or if you combine all three) you go up a combat level. You can go up in a combat level in many other ways, like arching or using magic, but it will just take much longer. So it's really the easiest way to go up combat levels by fighting with swords and shields.

Runescape isn't all fighting, though. You can decide what your character does to make money on Runescape. You can fish and sell your catch (or you could eat it) you could fight enemies and sell what they drop, you could be a cook and sell some cooked food for decent prices, a lumberjack and sell higher quality wood, a miner and mine ore that can be used to smelt weapons and armor, or you could use the ore and smelt and smith and sell the weapons and armor yourself. All have their advantages and disadvantages. My favorite was mining, but once you get to making steel out of the ore, you need coal, and coal is in EXTREMELY high demand on Runescape. Everyone wants coal, and it could be a bit hard to get, so some miners quit around coal.

When choosing how you fight, you also get to be a bit creative. Do you want to be a warrior, a wizard, or an archer? If you're a warrior, that means you carry around weapons and armor, and that's what you use to kill people. If you're a wizard, you collect runes (or have the aid of a staff) and cast spells on other people. If you're an archer, you get a bow and some arrows and fire away. Once you're a warrior for a long time, you can use higher quality weapons and armor, which can dish out quite a bit of damage. As a Wizard, you can get stronger spells that can aid you, hurt the enemy, or get you out of a battle you don't want to fight. As an archer, you can use more accurate bows and arrows.

To make this a more social atmosphere on Runescape, there is a chat system. There, you can talk to other players. From there, you can decide whether you want to try to sell your items, form alliances, etc. However, this chat is monitored. Anything on the verge of a bad word will have letters replaced with a *. (my friend tells me he said "crap" and Runescape censored it) So, now you won't have to put up with people swearing at you just so they sound cool. If there's something you'd like to say to people but don't want anyone else to hear, you can add someone to your friend's list and instantly you can talk to them privately without anyone hearing what you're saying. Of course, there are sometimes these so annoying people who just won't shut up, and if you don't want to listen to them, then you can put them on your "ignore" list.

Runescape will probably get boring after doing the same routine every day, so Jagex put in a system of you being able to do quests. There is a list of quests you can do, each being able to get you different rewards. Sometimes you get items, sometimes you get gold, and sometimes you get experience points. The quests usually involve going back and forth from place to place by giving something, getting something, giving that something to someone else and getting something back, etc. The quests may be a bit boring, but some might just have some surprises...

You might get bored soon with only being able to fight the same enemies over and over again. If you want a wider variety of enemies, or if you want to make someone who thinks they're so tough pipe down, then the place to go is the WILDERNESS. The wilderness is where you can fight other players on Runescape and show your strength. If you want to fight someone around your level in the Wilderness, then you should stay around the front, in the level 1 or 2 Wilderness. What do the levels mean? Well, let's say you're in the level 5 wilderness and your combat level is 28. That means the lowest level player you could fight would be level 23, and the highest level player would be 33. To make the range wider, you can go deeper into the wilderness, but it's much more dangerous there, and there aren't necessarily just players looming around in there...

For those of you who really like the game and think that it shouldn't be free, then you're in luck. You can become a member to Runescape, and becoming a member allows you special privileges to Runescape. You can get much stronger weapons and armor, along with making new things in the smelting business, AND you get to go passed the "Members Gates" where you can explore areas others can't. I've heard the price for being a member is $5-$12 a month, so if you're willing to spend a pretty penny on an internet game, all the power to you.

That's pretty much all there is to Runescape. So, if this sounds like a good game to you, go log on to runescape.com, create a new account and player, and from there, the choices are all yours...

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/04