When I saw that Snowblind was putting out a sequel to the best action rpg on the PS2, I was severely stoked. I had visions of a cool new storyline, new playable races and classes, amazing new locales, and awesome new armour and weapons. Unfortunately, Snowblind has barely delivered much of the above items at all. The storyline of C:RtA, if you can call it that, is a basic continuation of the story from the first game. In other words, you're out to kill the followers of Hate, and then the God of Hate himself. Yawn. Been there - done that in the 1st game. There are 2 new races. A Cat-man, and a Lizard-man. Note that I said -man. While the 1st game allowed you to play either the male or female version of a race/class and those choices are back in the "sequel", the male gender is the only option for the Animal races. The 2 new races provide the 2 new classes as well. Berserker and Shaman, respectively, but I was still pretty miffed that they didn't put in an option where you could choose whatever class you want, no matter what race you pick. There are new locales in the game, but they are basically just re-hashes of the tilesets from the 1st game. There are also no new skin/hairstyle/hair colour/tattoo choices. From what I've seen, and I've played through the 1st two difficulty levels so far, there are no new weapons or armour, they've simply added new colour schemes. Gameplay Positives: It's just as good as the original, the controls are easy and fun. Combat is also easy and fun. Kill stuff -> collect gold and equipment -> level up -> repeat. One thing that's new in this "sequel", is the addition of the concept of good or evil choices. Right off the bat, you can choose whether you'll play an evil character, or a good character. This influences the rest of the game for you in terms of who you'll receive quests from, etc. It's a step in the right direction. Gameplay Negatives: Virtually nothing new. Graphics Positives: Just as excellent as Champions of Norrath. Graphics Negatives: Virtually nothing new. Sound Positives: Just as excellent as Champions of Norrath Sound Negatives: The voice-acting isn't as good as it was in the 1st game. This time around it's almost as if Snowblind encouraged the voice talent to really overact and be as cheesy as possible. Value Positives: It's a fun game. Value Negatives: Wait until you can pick it up used. Champions of Norrath is the more enjoyable game. Reviewer's Tilt: Like I said, this should have been labelled as an expansion pack, not a sequel. It's a good game, but if you played the 1st one, you're going to be really disappointed.
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