The premise is sound, a world that
has been over-saturated with arcane magicks, scientific manipulation, black
arts and war finally gets what it has had coming, a really screwed-up land.
Having been manipulated by magic and science, the world of Ethegia has
creatures that never should have been roaming the countryside messing up
everything and everyone. In this game, you aren’t trying to save the world,
its a foregone conclusion that things have been screwed up so badly there’s no
bringing it back, but you can survive in it and do some things that are
somewhat beneficial to you and society.
Yes, you can’t talk about an
MMORPG without mentioning World of Warcraft. Yes, the bar has been set by WoW
and many developers have tried and failed to come up with another "as popular"
online game like it, and while the recent Conan MMORPG has infused some neat
things into the genre, for the most part, the games all seem to be the same.
Now don’t think I don’t know about Star Wars Galaxies and any of the other ilk
that more or less robs you of $50 bucks and then only holds your attention for
a little while. Which is all the more reason I was pleasantly surprised with
Requiem. The game has some deeply rooted horror elements going for it (in a
Clive Barker visual sort of way) and while the blood flows as red as in other
games, it seems to hold a bit more of your attention here thanks to the
grotesque malformations that you run across and the means of dispatching foes.
And game called Bloodymare had better have something to do with both blood and
nightmares, and in this case, the truly dangerous and more powerful
adversaries come out as the sun goes down in this real time world.
"Man! I just washed this shirt!"
The game is set up on a slightly
different albeit familiar way. You pick your race of three selections, the
human looking Turans, the over pumped and superiorly built Bartuks and the
semi-demonic looking Kruxena. You can pick either the male or female model of
each race and then choose all the other (sometimes frustrating) options to
make your character unique to you. These characters are created rather than
born through the twisted sciences that have pretty much mutilated the world.
Like many games of this type you
will benefit from hanging outside of one of the many starting points and
basically building your character up by whupping up on the local baddies.
Almost every encounter will result in both gold and/or items being found which
you can then go into the city and buy better equipment; yeah, yeah, yeah,
we’ve heard this all before. Its a staple in almost every RPG (leveling up)
and nothings different here. In fact, you can also join guilds and get jobs
from many of the (NPC) people you encounter in the towns. And like other
games, you will develop quests and be required to join up with other
adventurers to complete them. In fact, almost immediately you will find
objects and artifacts that are lying around waiting for you to get that quest
to complete.
"You mean to tell me she doesn’t have a
boyfriend?"
The high point of all of this is
the actual fighting of said creatures. Like I said, they don’t call it
Bloodymare for nothing. Limbs will fly, heads will roll, torsos erupt in
viscus fountains. This holds a lot of weight with some gamers as the boring
toll of fighting monsters for the sake of fighting can get old. Experience is
dealt out fairly, with some big quests providing some big rewards. And it
looks pretty good too, since the game has a decent engine powering it (Havok)
the action comes at a good pace. Shading as the day turns to night and then
the eventual nightmare time with fog rolling in and the really creepy looking
things come out to play is well established. Pays to have a hot video card to
take advantage of all the wonderful hues of red that appear and the design of
all characters is done with modest aplomb and zest. The view can be adjusted
with the simple use of the mouse wheel to allow for a large field of vision or
small depending on how you like your third-person-viewed games.
The audio does slip a bit with
tired and uninspired monster death cries and less sound effects than you might
expect. Oh sure, there is plenty of hacking and smacking, but a complete
absence of voice work becomes really noticeable early on and things don’t get
any better from there. No hero music or anything to get the heart pumping,
remember this is supposed to be a horror-themed title, yet the only thing
scary is the lack of noises.
"Hey Bert, I think she’s giving you
the eye…."
The big thing that Requiem has is
the DNA modeling system which allows your character to begin tweaking their
own DNA for taking advantages of strengths and weaknesses. Its an unusual idea
that actually works pretty well fleshed out. The other thing Requiem has going
for it is the acquired ability to transform into a beast. After completing the
possesion beast ability quest you can transform into your own walking
nightmare of death and destruction at random opportune times.
While teaming up with other
real-time players is a must to complete big quests, others will be happy to
know there is a combat arena where 4-on-4 up to 16-on-16 can compete in
coliseum-style battles for honor and really good equipment. Sooner or later
you will be asked to come jump in the arena, this is the next big portion of
the game’s multiplayer capability. I thought it was an inventive and decent
way to keep things going.
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Gameplay: 7.7
Control is decent enough, lots to
work with and many places to go and adventure in and on and around. Control is
dialed in well with plenty of options for character development.
Graphics: 8.4
More than your average amount of
gore and chunks go flying by, with some really cool-looking and scary monsters
coming out in the really late times of the night.
Sound: 5.0
An almost complete lack of sound
is heard throughout the game. An occasional NPC player speaking would have
helped as well as much more sound effects and scary music; remember this is
supposed to be a horror-based game.
Difficulty: Medium
Veterans of the genre probably will have little trouble playing and
getting quite far in the game (before growing bored of it). Newbies may find
some additional challenges but not so much that you can’t get things done.
Concept: 5.0
Ok, this is a hard score and I
give it because the developers promised us a MMORPG with a horror theme. There
are no jumps or scares in this game. Some monsters look frightening and the
high blood and body part count may be disturbing, but to me, that isn’t scary.
This is more of a gore fest then anything. I can’t wait til someone comes out
with an actual scary MMORPG.
Multiplayer: 7.5
Questing together and then
fighting against another in the battle arena is a pretty sweet idea.
Overall: 6.5
I was disappointed in the lack of
horror for a horror-based game. However, there are worse MMORPGs out there and
this is above par … barely. Unless the DNA coding and beast ability is
something that really excites you, you could take it or leave it.
