Unbiased review - A mix of other MMO's make this a great game, but nothing really new here
I am surprised so many people are giving this game such high ratings when it has been out less than a week in head start and no one has seen the end game yet.
Anyway I shall attempt to give an unbiased review of what I've seen from the first head start week of the game (I was also a beta tester).
First off character creation feels a bit lacking as there are only a number of pre-sets to choose from, with minor adjustments that can be made such as face width, nose tilt etc. It certainly doesnt have the amount of options available as in Conan.
There are 2 sides (factions) to choose from - Guardian (good) and Defiant (bad). Thereafter there are 3 races - elf, dwarf and humanoid. Then there are 4 classes - warrior, mage, rogue and cleric. These classes are then subdivided into 8 specific sub-classes called "souls".
You have a choice of 3 souls being equipped at anyone time and each soul has its own talent tree. The benefit of this is that it allows you to customise your character in whatever way you want and essentially pick your skills so it is unlikely there will be 2 characters exactly the same and gets away from the cookie cutter type mould seen in say Lotro.
As for questing it is your typical MMO fare - not much to say here other than any experienced MMO player will know what to expect. However I must mention that there is incredibly thick spawn of mobs with long aggro range and I find this makes the game much more difficult than other MMOs. I rolled a Stormcaller Mage which although its supposed to be a high DPS AOE class, doesnt feel like it does much DPS at all, is very squishy and I die a lot. Many players on the forums complain that most mage souls (apart from necromancer) are unbalanced and broken. Most people are playing as Rogues which can breeze through the game due to DPS and are the most fun class to play. I suspect with the amount of Rogues about they will find it difficult to get a group at end game.
What you will find is that Rift takes a little bit of other games that have gone before it. There is nothing really new here or groundbreaking. It feels very much like a WoW clone with a lot of Warhammer thrown in the mix. Here and there bits of Guild Wars are noticeable too.
That said there is a lot of depth to this game - the complicated talent trees are fun and will give you a headache in how to spend your points, equippable stones called planar essenses which boost your stats and fluff collectibles which can be obtained in hard to find places.
As the game is called Rift what is suppossed to make the game stand out are random Rifts that occur at any part in the world where monsters will come down from the sky and any player nearby can join a public group to defeat the bosses and share loot. There is absolutely nothing new in this, is is the same game mechanic that occurs in Wahammer or for example where a GM comes into Lotro in Etten. The problem is that Rifts are far too common - they are all over the place all the time but really they should be a rare ocurrence (maybe once a week on the server ?) to give a bit of excitement. After playing the game a few days, you tend to think "Oh another rift - yawn" and pass it by.
Speaking of Warhammer, graphically this DX9 game looks almost identical, and at first blush you would be forgiven for thinking that this is just a Warhammer expansion. That said Rift excels where Warhammer failed insofar as it is a much more polished, less buggy and more fun game to play. However some of the animations (such as mounts, character running etc look just awful, feel cartoonish and childish).
We are in 2011 and I feel the graphics (and I play at max settings) are somewhat of a let down when the likes of four year old Lotro now runs in DX11 and 3 year old Conan runs in DX10. This is obviously to woo the WoW fanbase who tend to have lower spec computers.
Sound is pretty good - it has pleasant background music and appropriate combat effects unlike the horrible korean karate sounds of Aion.
As for PvP, I've never been a fan, but PvP in Rift is great as it has different game modes such as capture the flag and domination etc - it is very enjoyable. It takes place in "Warfonts" which can be joined though an instance join command similar to Lotro's instances.
Crafting is almost identical to the system used in AIon.
With regard to Lore there really isn't much of a story to follow.
The game costs £9 per month subscription, with 3 and 6 monthly options.
Overall Rift is essentially WoW but with better graphics (that still aren't as good as older MMO's such as Conan, Aion or Lotro), which copies a lot of game mechanics from Warhmmer. That said it a hugely enjoyable game and worthplaying. Whether there are still people around on the servers later this year when Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars comes out is another matter.
PvE Gameplay 8
PvP Gameplay 9
Depth 10
Graphics 7
Sound 10
Overall 8.5
Review Deck
Intel i5 661; Gigabyte P55 US3L Mobo; Geforce GTX 470; 8 Gb Corsair Dual channel DDR3 666 ram; Windows 7 Home Premium; Nostromo N52 Speedpad; Logitech G500 Mouse; Logitech Wingman Force feedback joystick; Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard; 22" w/s LCD 5m/s; Creative X-fi fatality; Coolermaster 650w PSU