Best MMORPG I've played...and I've played them all!
User Rating: 9.6 | EverQuest II (With Kingdom of the Sky Bundle) PC
As a former Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, Shadowbane, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, Lineage 2, Eve Online, Horizons, Final Fantasy XI, and World of Warcraft player, I felt like all of them fell short in one BIG area. They just were not immersive. They failed to draw me into the world and keep me hooked. I LOVE this game. I was in the beta for a couple weeks and ended up with a level 10+ character as a mage (sorcerer), scout, fighter (warrior), and priest (cleric). The graphics are amazing, the sound is very immersive, the gameplay is intuitive, and best of all...I can see myself playing this game for a long time and not just qutting after a couple months. For those of you who are holding off from buying this game because of launch problems I can tell you right now, the launch has gone incredibly smooth when compared to SWG and Lineage 2. I feel like I should caution hardcore dungeons and dragons players. If you are the type that likes to spend hours building a character and perfecting him/her, this game is not for you. Almost everything about the leveling and skills in this game are automatic. It's something I love, but a lot of D&D fans might find it too linear and simplistic. The downtime and hardcore camping of the original Everquest seems to have been dramatically cutdown as this game is much more fast paced. Also, Everquest 2 is almost completely quest based. Sure, you can go out and farm for xp if you want, but you are awarded a lot of good items/armor/weapons by doing quests, not to mention you get decent experience as well. So why buy Everquest 2 over World of Warcraft? It's simple...Expansions, expansions, expansions. Sony has received a lot of flak in the past for releasing expansions that seemed to do little to entice a new subscriber or contained an amount of content other games offered for free, but I can tell you this. After playing both World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 for over 100 hours, Everquest 2 has much more room for expansion and growth. Tack on the fact that Everquest already has a set community, and a good one at that, I'd say you can't go wrong with Everquest 2. For all those who didn't like the first Everquest, have no fear. Everquest 2 is little like the first one. Bottom line is this is the best of the best of MMORPGs. The only reason I ended up taking .4 off the score is because I don't think anything is perfect, though Everquest 2 comes darn close.
