Drop, charge, and lose the cords
GameSpot editors' review
-
CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 11/17/2004
- Released on: 11/08/2004
- Originally published on GameSpot: EverQuest II (PC) Review
EverQuest wasn't the first game of its kind when it was released in 1999, but it was the best, and remained the best for a long time. Along with Ultima Online, it deserves credit for popularizing the massively multiplayer online role-playing genre, and it's still widely played to this day. As a result, the inevitable EverQuest II has some seriously big shoes to fill. And it almost does. In many ways, this new game embodies almost all the numerous refinements and evolutions that the genre has undergone in the past five years, so it's one of the most instantly gratifying and accessible online RPGs yet. It also sports a rather impressive presentation, thanks largely to an ambitious effort to make almost all the game's non-player characters communicate using full speech. Yet when you get right down to it, EverQuest II really isn't that different from the numerous other games of its type, and its mostly great visuals are offset by subpar technical performance. So while EverQuest II isn't the massive step for the genre that its predecessor was, it can still be a fun and addictive online role-playing experience that has a lot to offer new and experienced players alike.
Hail EverQuest II!
It's worth noting right up front that EverQuest II launched in a solid state. It offered a wide breadth of content and some obvious depth from the day of release, which really should be nothing to boast about, but then again, we're talking about a genre that's historically taken a "ship it now and fix it later" approach. As such, unlike a lot of other, lesser online RPGs, EverQuest II clearly has a good amount of original content for you to spend many hours exploring. At least for the first several dozen hours, it always gives you something to do, generally doing a good job of keeping you engaged, if not addicted. The game picks its battles, though. Unlike many other online RPGs, EverQuest II is purely focused on player vs. environment gameplay, so there's no player vs. player combat in the game whatsoever. This is a surprising omission, especially considering that the structure of the game seems like an obvious setup for some PvP action, since all players are forced to swear allegiance to the forces of good or the forces of evil. For comparison's sake, the original EverQuest did include player vs. player combat, as well as the ability to harmlessly duel with other players (that much, at least, would have been nice here), but EverQuest's focus has always been on cooperative instead of competitive play.
In exchange, EverQuest II offers a fairly complex and entertaining combat system, a similarly interesting system of "tradeskills," the ability to sublet and furnish your own dwelling in the gameworld (complete with the pleasures of having to pay rent), and a pretty impressive guild system that lets player guilds indirectly compete for prominence. Like the original, EverQuest II's world consists of numerous discrete adventure zones that, also like the original, are separated by some lengthy loading times. The game does a fairly good job of letting you get your bearings in each new area, thanks to an onscreen compass, a pop-up map of your surroundings, and a journal that automatically keeps track of the quests you've undertaken. EverQuest II also alleviates the tedious downtimes that were a notorious part of the original game, so even if you're fighting solo, it's possible to recover your health and power (used for spells and special abilities) fairly quickly in between fights. As a result of all this, EverQuest II is more conducive to relatively short play sessions than a lot of other online RPGs, but it's still a game that will happily swallow up all your spare hours, and really demands to be played for at least several hours at a time for satisfying results.
The world of EverQuest II is the very same Norrath featured in the original game, but it's a Norrath that's been stricken by a cataclysmic event that caused most of the world's civilization to collapse. As a result, only two main metropolises remain: Qeynos, home of the forces of good, and Freeport, bastion of the forces of evil. When creating your character, you must choose your alignment--good or evil--although some character races are limited to just one or the other. At any rate, this choice determines your starting city (you can change allegiances later by undertaking a special "betrayal quest"), and in turn, the locations in which you'll inevitably be spending most of your first several dozen hours of play. The two main cities are superficially quite different: The polite citizens of Qeynos traipse along streets lined with Victorian-style buildings, while Freeport's surly population fits right in with its cruel, inhospitable architecture. However, each city is equally large and equally diverse, and offers similar amenities and analogous quests. It's interesting to see how things are on both sides of the fence, but don't expect the good and evil experiences in EverQuest II to be drastically different from a gameplay standpoint.
The wide assortment of different character races and classes is one of the game's most compelling features.
All of EverQuest's numerous character races are once again present here, including the smaller ones like dwarves and gnomes; the boring old medium-size ones like humans and half-elves; and the bigger, brawnier ones like barbarians and ogres. The reptilian iksar and feline kerran are also present, along with a new race of bipedal rodents called the ratonga. EverQuest's frogloks are still hopping around in Norrath, too, but are initially not selectable as a player race, for whatever reason. Still, there's a broad, colorful selection of different possibilities here, and for each different race, you can play as a male or female version and also customize your character's hairstyle and facial features. The character-creation process doesn't give you too much freedom to significantly differentiate your appearance from that of other characters of the same race and gender, but it's still fun to mess around with. While you're limited to a maximum of four characters per account, you'll inevitably want to try out a variety of different character types to find the one whose style best suits you. But don't expect anything drastic here, either, even when switching from a tiny halfling to a hulking troll. Like in the original EverQuest, the differences between races seem mostly superficial, notwithstanding some minor race-specific abilities and ability-score distributions.
The game opens with an optional interactive tutorial that does a great job of teaching you the basics, even if you're already well acquainted with such games. After this brief adventure, which takes place at sea, you'll land on the Isle of Refuge, which just so happens to be a perfect place for newbie players to cut their teeth on EverQuest II's combat, tradeskill, and questing elements. You're free to leave the isle at any time, but you can gain some valuable items and experience by sticking around and exploring for a while. Eventually, the quests here pretty much require you to team up with other players to succeed, so the isle serves as a great introduction to the virtues of working as a team instead of going at it solo. With that said, one of the nice things about EverQuest II compared with its predecessor is that it lets most types of characters more viably fight and explore solo, at least throughout the initial stages of the character's life.
A helpful tutorial and a mostly solid, uncluttered interface help make EverQuest II easier to get into than most such games.
However, before you get to your adventuring, you need to pick a profession. EverQuest II actually features about two dozen different character classes, but to make things easier on you, it'll initially let you choose from just four: fighter, scout, mage, or priest. Unlike in EverQuest, any combination of races and classes is possible, so if you want to be an ogre mage, you can. After you've made your choice, you'll be able to choose one of several specialized classes at around level 10 (after undergoing a series of quests), and then one of a couple of different subclasses at level 20 (ditto). For example, a fighter can evolve into a warrior, a brawler, or a crusader, and if you become a brawler, then you can later become a bruiser or a monk. Neither the game's manual nor the game itself does a particularly good job of explaining what the differences are between the specialized classes and subclasses, but the differences tend to be at least slightly intuitive. Nevertheless, you need to choose very carefully when decision time comes: Your choice is final, and will determine which sorts of responsibilities your character will have in a group, and how viable your character will be if left to his or her own devices. At any rate, there's certainly a wide variety of different classes, and each of the four main archetypes seems powerful, useful, and interesting in its own right.
EverQuest II is briskly paced at first, but it slows down considerably around the time you earn your specialty class. There's currently an experience-level limit of 50, and after a little more than a week, some hardcore players are already about halfway there (though the second half is going to be much slower going, of course). Since there's no PvP component to aspire to, what's to be expected from EverQuest II's high-level game? The answer is, if anything, probably a lot of guild-specific agendas. Forming a guild in EverQuest II is a pretty simple process that requires you to come up with six or more like-minded players and a reasonable sum of gold. Once you've formed or joined a guild, you'll notice that the guild itself can gain experience levels, which happens as its members complete the tasks requested of them in writs they can receive from the town herald. Since all online RPGs implicitly encourage players to "race" through the levels, becoming stronger as quickly as possible so they can be the envy of everyone else, the writ system seems like a good way to bring this undeniable dynamic to a team-based level. So, even though there's no PvP, there's still going to be a sense of competition between guilds, who'll need to expand their numbers and keep accomplishing tasks so they can earn more status points, which they can spend on special rewards that increase the guild's prestige within its city. The game also features some good tools for guild management, including integration with a Web site that lets you automatically keep track of what's happening with your guild. For what it's worth, EverQuest II also seems to do a good job of keeping its economy stable and balanced. For example, lower-level characters simply cannot take advantage of hand-me-down high-level equipment.
EverQuest II makes a great first impression, and it starts out a brisk pace, but it eventually settles you into that old, familiar online RPG grind.
Combat in EverQuest II closely resembles what's been done by some earlier rivals to EverQuest, such as Dark Age of Camelot and Final Fantasy XI. Fundamentally, it's still a lot like EverQuest in that you target an enemy and initiate your auto-attack, which causes you and the foe to exchange hits until one of you dies or flees. However, combat becomes an active experience thanks to the presence of so many different spells and special abilities for each character class. Even the game's warrior-type classes, which are relatively simplistic in EverQuest, have lots of unique powers. So you'll whale on your foe while unleashing a torrent of debilitating attacks and defensive maneuvers. Furthermore, certain types of moves initiate what are called "heroic opportunities," which are basically combos of special moves. If you and your party members string together a proper sequence of actions, you'll trigger some kind of beneficial effect, such a temporary boost in your attack speed or power. Heroic opportunities require no real timing, but reward basic coordination within groups and help make the combat slightly more involved than is typical of the genre. Fighting in groups can get pretty hectic, though, as damage numbers clutter the screen and the text window, making it difficult to tell what's going on from moment to moment. Nevertheless, a clear, fairly uncluttered interface lets you easily keep tabs on how your allies are doing.
The foes you'll be fighting against include many EverQuest mainstays, along with some new creations. Early on, you'll once again be dealing with ignoble critters like rats, snakes, bugs, and spiders, but you'll eventually graduate to fighting bigger and tougher foes. The game does a good job of giving you an at-a-glance indication of which creatures will be immediately hostile to you and which creatures will ignore you, and it also gives you a decent assessment of a foe's relative strength. In a nice touch, EverQuest II also lets creatures group together. Sometimes you'll encounter monster groups, which yield experience bonuses when defeated, and which tend to be impossible for individual players of similar experience level to overcome. So if you prefer playing solo, you'll need to be on the lookout for monsters that don't like company, either. Your foes' artificial intelligence is typical of the genre. They'll automatically target the physically weaker characters in your party, unless the stronger characters manage to hurt them or taunt them enough to draw their attention. If you're getting hammered by a foe, it's possible to sprint away to safety.
Continue readingMost helpful user reviews
-
Average user rating:
0 stars
Not yet available
Back to product review - My rating: 0 stars Write review
-
Showing 3 of 3 user reviews
-
0 out of 1 people found this helpful
- See all 3 user reviews Write review
Submit your review
EverQuest II (PC):
%20PC%20Game%20reviews%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/everquest-ii-pc/4505-9696_7-31319774.html){kind=small}