Thursday, March 8, 2012

Eligium Review

Today I chose to review Elguim, a German game published by Frogster. I played in their Open Beta event, so hopefully I don't get sued for this review (crossed fingers).  (Note: I only made it to 15th level, there is only so much self flagellation my mind can take)






Character Creation:
     Unusually in this day and age, the classes were race locked.  From what could tell there were humans, elves of different shades, and Pandas, but only male Pandas.  I assume it was because the female versions looked horrible, or the only people who would want to play them are deviant furries. (dirty dirty furries)  The classes were the usual mix of fantasy tropes, warriors, archers, mages, priests, and and extra fighter type class for the the fuzzy bear people. 
    There were no options for character customization, so everyone of the same class and gender looked the same, up until the higher levels when you could get some different armor.  There were two factions to choose from, but that didn't even seem to make a cosmetic difference. Last you choose a virtue, which again seems to do nothing.

Setting and Story:
     What Story?  You're supposed to be "the chosen one", along with every other player.  Let's be honest, there may have been a story in the text boxes as you wander from one quest hub to the next but the translations were painful enough that couldn't even read them.  I think they were originally written in German then translated to Korean (or Chinese maybe), then into English.  The result was a bit of a mess.
     As far as the setting is concerned, it's copy/pasted from any number of other fantasy mmo's.  Most games try for sweeping vistas, or barring that a bit of empty space to make you feel like you are inhabiting a large world, not here. the maps were quite small and crowded.  It felt like trying to have an epic adventure in your backyard.

 Gameplay:
      I would say the combat is the usual tab-targeting mechanic, but that didn't even seem to work right.  You never quite knew exactly which monster you where aiming at, not that it mattered, your auto attack would take care of just about anything.  Attack skills were pretty much useless except to get through the multitude of kill 5, 10, or 20 of  X quests.  That and the fact 99% of the mobs wouldn't even look twice at you until you knocked off about a third of their life.  A jump button would have helped the bugged auto routing.  There is no real point in just fighting to grind out a level or two, between the ease of most of the mobs and the fact you get very little xp from them.

Value:
      Well it's free, but that's about all that can be said for it.  Didn't try the item shop, in fact I'm not sure they had it up yet . 

    In closing, if you want a game you can play on auto pilot, this is the game for you.  Maybe I'll try again after the official release, but there maybe paint to watch dry.