Ignore the fanboys, there's good, there's bad, but for the most part, this is one BLAND experience.
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DISCLAIMER: I am not a WoW lover. I quit that game after the first expansion because it was ruined by them. It did a lot right, but I have not played it since the first expansion came out and hold no love for the game. This review is as honest as can be from an indifferent point of view. I wanted the game to be good, I wanted something to play, so stop your fanboy crying because I didn't give it a 10 and read the thing already! I left out PvP in my review because I have not yet tested it out enough to make a good judgment.
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Rift is plain. It's a generic MMO with not much great to say about it. If you don't want to read the paragraphs of good and bad, you can just skip to my OVERALL at the bottom...
Let's start with the good, at least:
-Rifts/Invasions/etc.- These are actually a pretty cool mechanic. They're fun and pop up randomly and even in towns. Mobs pour out, smack them around, move on. The object of Rifts and the system for getting you together with a group for them is pretty good and provides a good break from questing. I found myself running around to find Rifts and not questing because they were more fun, which is a good thing.
-Instances are well made and interesting. They are some of the most technically impressive environments as well.
-Graphics- Pretty technically impressive for an MMO on a cheap computer cost. I can run it on max settings on a "mainstream" computer.
-Skill Trees- The skill trees and idea of "souls" instead of classes makes for a good bit of freedom and creativity when creating classes. While it does make suggestions for what works best, mixing and matching seems to work just as well. The actual skills that you use are pretty generic, with most of them being +X to X and a few abilities. Basically, they didn't take many chances.
-Combat- Combat is faster paced than most recent MMO's, while still being your typical macrofest/clickfest. Unfortunately, you'll find you only need to use a few skills, with a good portion of skills being completely useless.
Alright, now for a lengthy section of the bad. Fanboys need not read:
-Rifts are TOO common and broken- Now, the gameplay mechanic is pretty darn cool. It's fun, but it happens every few minutes. They pop up EVERYWHERE. In very little time you'll walk right by them because they're actually not that dynamic. They follow the same pattern every single time. 4-6 stages of mobs or objectives, usually kill X mobs. It's just not that creative and isn't really all that interesting after a while, especially since they happen every few minutes. Invasions and Zone events happen less, but they are more of the same. Zone events are at least interesting and the most fun of these mechanics.
Sadly, Rifts are also broken. You are provided a "contribution" mechanic for Rifts that give the best loot to the people that do the most work, which is great in theory, but it is largely based on actions per minute. This is a problem when people can spam useless skills like "find ore" to get their contribution to max. (EDIT: This has been hotfixed.)
-Animations are awful- What are good graphics without good animations. They are just tough to look at. Special skills are interesting enough, but simple weapon swings look terrible. Characters don't move their upper bodies, they swing from the elbows. There isn't much to look at in the way of animations and it just doesn't look good.
-Lots of game mechanics go unexplained for a while- I can't count the number of times in my early levels that I had to ask people what something meant or was used for. Tutorials didn't even cover most of it.
-Loot is... not exciting- Loot is the most important part of making an MMO. I have not yet found myself getting excited over a big drop because most of the time it's just not that much better than basic quest rewards.
-The game is so generic and takes so few risks it's just not that fun after a while- I had to force myself to keep playing at certain points to try and get my money's worth out of buying this game. Sadly, at all too often intervals, it was just so bland and boring that it provided very little to keep you interested in moving to the next zone.
-The game is FREAKING EASY. I have died one time. ONE TIME, in 25 levels (that's half the level cap). The time I died, I attacked an elite that two-shotted me. Basic mobs provide no challenge whatsoever as long as you stick within your level range.
-Lore, etc. Is terrible- To make a world come to life, you need something, ANYTHING. Rift has nothing. The main "story" is so bad I think some guy thought of it in a day. There is no interesting anything, it's bland, it's boring, and it's completely uninteresting, much like a lot of the rest of the game.
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OVERALL: RIFT doesn't do much new, and what it does do new it didn't do very well. It is pretty much a direct copy paste of WoW with little new stuff. It took no chances with design and just came out with a bland and uninteresting product that will go the way of most MMOs, that being die off with a small but strong-willed player base. Graphics are nice, if lacking detail in many places. Rifts are a nice addition to core MMO gameplay, but get old fast and are sufficiently broken.
You will probably get your 50 bucks worth of entertainment, but I don't see anything here that will keep you paying month by month for content. What is there is done pretty well, and the company itself seems pretty solid in customer service etc. Unfortunately, the game is just average, and I don't expect it to survive for long.
EDIT: I will admit that the invasions and instances are sufficiently entertaining enough that I felt the need to increase my score slightly.