Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Disastrous"

+ It's free.
+ The PvP is pretty good.
- Horrible game interface, along with horrible server connections.
- It's about as fun as listening to someone else's grandmother tell stories.

When I first got this game, I was thinking it was going to be like a massively huge world with game play much like Diablo or other action RPGs. If anything, maybe a little like Everquest. Nope, I was wrong. Everything you can think that could go wrong in a game, does go wrong in Shadowbane. I don't even know what a Shadowbane is, but I certainly don't care to find out.

The first thing you'll notice in-game is the horrible graphics, even for when it was released. Everything is blotchy, generic, and feels much like a free MMO. The shadows don't even cast correctly, giving only up to a character's shins for a shadow. It's pathetic. Moving from there, you'll be drawn to the attention of it's horrible interface. Sure, you can move about everything on the interface, but that doesn't mean it's any good. It's ugly, it's generic, and it's hopeless. Geez, could it get worst? Yes. For now we look at the controls. They somehow managed to make doing something as simple as fighting hard to control. You have to push C when you want to fight, but if you're doing anything else, you have to be out of combat. This really shouldn't be an issue, since it's just hitting the C button, but it just really gets annoying. One of the best features of the game, the PvP, is even flawed in some areas. When in a group, you are allowed to attack your team mates. I actually like that idea, but what happens when you combine that with lag and a horrible interface? You end up thinking you're attacking something else, when in fact, you're attacking a teammate. That's where the C button comes into a problem. When the game picks back up after lag and confusion, you find yourself almost killing someone and everyone is ready to turn on you. Well, you're not thinking about hitting C. You're now thinking about running the heck away. But then you have the problem of your character throwing his weapon at people (somehow, your warrior is now a axe throwing maniac). It's really a confusing mess, much like it was written.

The main issue with this game, aside from the complete boredom and extremely steep learning curve, is the amount of lag you'll experience. During a group run, you'll find yourself running for a while, only to be lagged back to a mile ago where you came from. Apparently, on the server, you weren't going anywhere. That's not all! When fighting, you'll sometimes see that you're not taking any damage off of the person you're attacking. Oh, that's because of lag. Then there's the death lag. This is highly annoying. When you die, your body has to spawn back to the "graveyard". I've sat and wait for that to happen for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. Another fun glitch is when you're in a group and you see everyone getting attacked (according to their health numbers flying about), but no one is near you. Oh, that's a really nifty lag-glitch in which you have to restart to fix. Well, as you'd expect, when you hope back in the game, you'll notice you're now dead. Joy!

There's so much to complain about in this game. Overall, if you want to have the most boring time of your life, play this game for a few hours. You'll absolutely hate it.