Anarchy Online Preview
Will Anarchy Online replace EverQuest as the next great MMORPG? Read our impressions of an early build to find out.
Norwegian developer Funcom has been making games since 1993, and though it started out making 16-bit console games, it has continued to take on larger, more-complex projects. Most recently, Funcom was responsible for the epic adventure game The Longest Journey, GameSpot's Adventure Game of the Year 2000. But nothing the company has ever done can compare to its latest and most ambitious game yet: Anarchy Online, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
Anarchy Online will be among the first of the so-called second generation of online role-playing games-- games preceded by the already-released online role-playing games Ultima Online, EverQuest, and Asheron's Call. Like other second-generation online RPGs, Anarchy Online will attempt to address its predecessors' problems, such as unbalanced player-vs.-player combat, overcrowding, and a static gameworld that quickly becomes stale and boring. But unlike other online RPGs, Anarchy Online will have a number of innovative features that'll distinguish it from its peers, many of which have already been implemented in the game's current state: the third phase of prerelease beta-testing.
One of the most distinctive things about Anarchy Online is its futuristic sci-fi setting--a setting that has been implemented extremely well and looks terrific, even at this early stage. The game takes place in and around a handful of settlements on a high-tech mining colony (known as Rubi-Ka), which has been bought out by a huge supercorporation; these settlements and their surroundings all look excellent. In the game, you can play as a character aligned with the company Omni-Tek; the rebel clan that opposes the company; or an independent freelancer; and you'll begin your adventuring career in a different city area depending on your affiliation. Each of the cities is already fully laid out, well designed, and thematically appropriate. For instance, the clan's Tir City is home to rebellious miners who secretly oppose Omni-Tek; Tir City itself resembles a converted residential area full of small houses and narrow alleys. In contrast, if you align your character with Omni-Tek, you'll begin your career in the sprawling city of Omni-1--a cold, sterile metropolis composed of wide streets lined with skyscrapers and brightly lit billboards that are marked with Omni-Tek propaganda.
Choosing your character's affiliation with Rubi-Ka's different factions is just one of the ways you can build and customize your character in Anarchy Online. The current beta build of the game already features the game's four different races, each of which is a subspecies of human: the well-rounded solitus; the swift and stealthy opifex; the intelligent nanomage, and the brutish atrox. Once you've chosen your character's race, you'll be able to further customize your character's appearance by choosing from one of about 20 different faces for each race, as well as choosing your character's height and build. Each of the different face choices has different hair and skin color, and between the different faces, heights, builds, and genders (all races except the unisex atrox may be either male or female), it's easy to create a distinctive-looking character.
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