Mike Bantick
Saturday, 25 July 2009 11:44
Entertainment
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Choosing a class and designing a character is quick, but with powerful options. Aion will pre-generate a random look for your avatar, but with the flick of your mouse, many aspects of your character can be altered. From skin colour and hue through to arm thickness and length, a wide variety of – human – playing pieces can be produced.
And then it is on to the gigantic world itself: Powered by the cryengine (the one from Far Cry and Crysis) the countryside is indeed a treat to behold, full of life and almost overwhelming blasts of colour. Whilst the world itself is vast, it is relatively easy to traverse, each realm is broken up into several sub-areas that with a few steps of passage completely transform in both flora, fauna and environmental. One minute you will be treading through dripping rainforest, and the next ploughing over ice flows.
Whilst it defies any sort of scientific logic, it definitely provides saccharine for the eyes.
For much of the early levels your newly created avatar will flit around – going solos – from one NPC (Non-Player Character) to the next taking jobs to prove your worth and more importantly harvest gold and experience points.
Eventually you will be donning new armour, swinging a new weapon (or spell book) and generally slaughtering lots and lots of innocent looking herds of mostly peaceful indigenous beasts. Not too heroic.
Learning new skills that have chaining effects and learning that physical positioning in a battle is important, add to the combat aspect of Aion. Giving an opponent more of your shield side means more chance to block an incoming blow. Thrusting forward as you attack will give greater weight to your smites. This reliance on positioning, whilst not a game-breaker, is a refreshing change from simply hitting the attack-until-beast-is-dead button, but does obviously, enhance combat for melee style characters rather than those prepositioned for range.
Once your avatar reaches ascension (at around level 10) a whole new game takes place, extra class options open up (Templar or Gladiator for the Warrior, Assassin or Ranger for the Scout, Sorcerer or Spirit master for the Mage and Chanter or Cleric for the Priest). Your newly ascended character - or Daeva - also sprouts wings, making travelling around the countryside less nauseating and opening up a whole new Z axis for exploration.
This not only opens options for game-play, but expands Aion’s quest styles to include management of verticality. Whilst you cannot fly everywhere in Atreia – through a clever restriction introduced as part of the back-story – there are plenty of times your avatar will be tasked with finding or fighting targets aloft.
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