Aion MMORPG Game Review (Beta) – An Online Revolution
Posted on 17. Jul, 2009 by Rock'nRolf in PC RPG Reviews
A worthy challenger to the MMO RPG throne.
A lot of RPG gamers are looking forward to the upcoming release of the new Aion online game that is setting out to challenge the almighty WoW for dominance in the MMORPG genre. I’ve had the opportunity to try out the beta version of Aion, and it looks like it’s shaping up to something really exciting!
Aion has the potential to outshine all online role-playing games’ main competitor World of Warcraft; maybe not so much by offering previously unseen and incredible new features, but by challenging WoW in ways where it can’t compete. Aion feels familiar right from the start – you have the usual classes like the archer, mage, warrior and priest, and the missions are pretty standard for an RPG. So, what’s so new and refreshing about Aion?
Well there are several aspects in which the Aion PC game excel actually. The first thing is the character design – You can tweak your character down to the smallest detail, and although there are only two races to choose from you can customize them a great deal with the built-in character tool. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly is the incredibly detailed game world. It’s probably the best-looking MMORPG ever, even trumping Age of Conan for fancy graphics. Screenshots won’t do it justice – you have to try it for yourself to see how good it all looks. A real game highlight is when you eventually grow a pair of wings and get to fly around on your own.
You start out in either of the two lands that belong to the respective races. When you play an Elyos – the race with access to sunlight – you get to enjoy lush forests brimming with detail. The Asmodian starting grounds are not as exciting though, as it’s dominated by darker shades, but at least the developers have managed to produce two very distinct environments to give the players a feel of the two opposing worlds.
The Aion game has been in development for a long time, but it’s already live and active in Asia. In other words the beta is already highly polished and not what you normally expect from a prerelease game. It’s very stable and does not suffer from any noticeable glitches. Thanks to the beta release Aion already has a rather large following and has already received lots of praise from the online gaming community before its official premiere. A lot of the discussions revolve around how technically superior Aion is to World of Warcraft, and that it’s about time that the aging online RPG gets some real competition.
The bottom line then? While the offers some breathtaking graphics, what it all eventually boils down to is the how the Aion game play measures up to the competition. As opposed to a lot of similar games, there is some focus on the story. All the players are basically godlike or angelic creatures that have fallen and need to fight to attain that god-hood again. Once you have reached that goal some of the game’s appeal could be lost. But we’ll wait for the retail release before we pass any judgment on it. At least we can safely say that it’s an incredible-looking game, and maybe it’s the one that can finally dethrone Blizzard’s masterpiece.
Aion Game Computer Requirements (minimum/recommended):
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz/Core Duo or AMD 2800+/better
RAM: 1GB/2GB
Graphics: Nvidia 6600/7600 or ATI Radeon X1550/X2600
HD Space: 30GB
OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista DirectX 9c
albert
Jul 19th, 2009
Looks like a decent game. think i’ll give it a try. is there any trial version available?
Jeff
Jul 25th, 2009
You can play the beta right now if you preorder the game
aion kina
Aug 10th, 2009
I’ve read tons of reviews about this game. And mostly, it is a good review. Actually, I am attracted on its graphics and it looks very interesting. I think I’ll pre-order a copy of this game so I can experience how great this promising this game is.