Massively multiplayer online role-playing games seem to be having something of a renaissance of late. Recent excellent games like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars have brought new levels of refinement and polish, in addition to inventive systems, to the genre that both draw in new audiences and keep existing addicts happy. The problem with RYL: Path of the Emperor is that it represents a throwback in the current market, offering mostly lackluster visuals, a staid player-versus-environment game, and a standard sort of guild-versus-guild, player-versus-player system. The Diablo-style clickfest combat is a refreshing twist in what is otherwise a wholly average MMO experience.

This is an MMO. So, of course, squirrels are deadly adversaries that may be approached only with great caution.

The world of RYL (that's "Risk Your Life") is one of violent upheaval, driven by the martial machinations of the two main races, the humans of Kartehena and the alien-looking Ak'Kan people of Merkhadia. A history of bloody conflict has the two groups at each other's throats, and though matters are pretty bleak on the whole, a third faction has risen to the fore. Dubbed the God's Pirates, this alliance of human and Ak'Kan forces seeks to spread peace and tolerance throughout the magical lands, known as the Almighty Ground, and its members aren't shy about getting their blades dirty in the name of reconciliation. What storyline there is in the game revolves around these three powers--Kartefants, Merkhadians, and God's Pirates--as they jostle with one another for supremacy. When you first start out, you'll be able to create either a human Kartefant or an Ak'Kan Merkhadian, and your choice will lock you to that one race on that particular server. You can also choose to switch your allegiance to the God's Pirates, if you so desire. The nationality you choose affects which quest lines you can explore in the game, as well as who you'll be targeted by during player-versus-player combat.

The character-creation tool lets you choose from a handful of appearance-customization options, and then it lets you choose an initial class archetype that you can refine later. The usual subjects are all here: fighters, rogues, mages, and acolytes (with their support magic). These broad character classes can be refined once you hit level 10 in the game, at which point you can find a class trainer and start learning your trade. Humans and Ak'Kan each have different classes that serve the same broad roles. For example, humans have warriors to inflict damage and defenders to soak up enemy hits, while the Ak'Kan have attackers and templars, which are roughly equivalent. Humans have enchanters, sorcerers, priests, and clerics, while the Ak'Kan have life, shadow, and rune "officiators." You'll also start off with a small number of points that you can assign to whichever character stats you'd like, a practice you'll repeat each time you gain a level in the game. Each of the various stats has unique benefits for the various classes. For example, strength will increase a warrior's damage, accuracy, evasion, speed, and more, while the same stat on a defender class will boost slightly different abilities.

For a cleric, she looks pretty surly. It's probably the hat.

While the game boasts hundreds of quests, they're split among the various factions, and, in truth, you won't encounter large numbers of them. The intrigues among the nationalities are loosely sketched out by the non-player characters in the game, though you won't get a really strong sense of narrative. What the player-versus-environment game does provide are scores of critters and creatures of steadily climbing strength for you to carve through as you go. You won't have any indication of how strong a monster is, relative to you, until you actually go up and hit it, though the creatures move slowly enough that you can usually run away from them (or right past them) fairly easily. However, most of the time you'll just need to find the strongest foe you can dispatch comfortably and grind patiently away until you've leveled up and can move over a little bit to attack the next-strongest foe. The game supports both a mouse-based (click to move) and a keyboard-based (WASD and mouse-look) system of movement; both movement systems feel sluggish and imprecise, though this weakness fortunately doesn't extend to the combat.