Lineage 2 - Pretty, Bloody, Vacant

Lineage 2 is famous in gaming circles, and for all the wrong reasons. The impression on its launch was that it really had turned out to be online anarchy, and it's still used as an example of pretty much everything that can go wrong with a game launch four years later, from terminal crashes to insecure servers. But four years and three expansions later, Lineage 2 is an online RPG that's changed almost beyond recognition.

AO carves its own niche in the MMORPG market simply by not being a fantasy game. As a science-fiction RPG, its only real niche competition is franchise games like Star Wars Galaxies, and EVE Online. Yet Lineage 2 has its own distinct feel - over time it's built its own universe, and just that makes it feel immersive. There's a lot of work in back-story, and while you can play as if there was no plot, you'll enjoy it more if you have a better grasp of what's going on.

Lineage 2 is, obviously, the sequel to the original Lineage MMORPG, a game that was hugely popular in Asia, but never quite cracked the Western market. The sequel has made the breakthrough into the American online RPG market, thanks largely to some astonishing graphics that make for a stunning first impression, but pushing past that, Lineage 2 is very much a niche game.

L2 is a classic fantasy RPG. You choose between five races; human, orc, dwarf, elf, and dark elf. They're all much as you'd expect; the ears are pointy and the women are well-defended from opponents who aim for the nipples. There are two initial choices of profession, fighter or mage, except if you're a dwarf. As a trade-off for being the only class who can craft, dwarves can only be fighters. The character models really are lovely, easily on a par with World of Warcraft. This is lucky, because customisation is so limited it's practically non-existent. You'll be looking to armour up just so you can tell which one is you.

And that's going to be a problem in itself, because the economy in Lineage 2 is insane. Even the most basic items are hugely over-priced when compared with the size of the monster drops. There's a crafting system and a player market, but when components are so expensive, players simply can't push the market price down. Speaking of the player market, it's run by sellers physically going into towns and sitting on the ground, with a little sign over their head saying what they're selling. Given the way the female characters have to sit in their tiny little skirts, you'd be forgiven for misunderstanding what was for sale.

Levelling is slow, and comes down to grinding, yet everything is so expensive you'll still end up farming monsters for cash. The monster models are excellent, but the AI isn't great (at lower levels monsters simply stand there doing nothing until you start hitting them) and combat is pretty much 'auto attack', so grinding is a real chore. There's a quest system in place, but quests are level-based, so even if that's the path you want to take, you're still going to have to grind.

While character and monster models are stunning, they show up the lack of work that's been put into the backgrounds. Better that than the other way around, but still, the lack of any decent textures stands out, and in some places you can see seams, black lines, big triangles...

Sound is excellent. The game comes with 171 .ogg files, and it shows, beautiful orchestrations running quietly in the background, providing atmosphere without ever really forcing their presence on you.

If you don't like PvP, you should stay well away from L2. Player killing is rampant, and in fact sometimes the journey from the training area to the nearest town is like a game of homicidal bullrush, there are so many high-level characters hanging around griefing. There's a karma system in place which brands characters Neutral, Aggressive, or Chaotic, and Chaotics are more likely to drop items when killed, can't use the market, and are attacked on sight by town guards. You work off karma by killing monsters though, and you're going to be doing a lot of that anyway.
What Lineage 2 is really well set-up for is inter-guild combat. They have huge battles to control castles, and the winning guild gets to impose taxes, make special items, and train dragons, for as long as they can hold it.

L2 also looks to be content-rich for some time. The first of a planned twelve expansions or chronicles is out, adding new regions to an already huge map and introducing the castle sieges as well as making minor tweaks to functionality. At least you won't run out of new places to kill things in the near future.

Basically, Lineage 2 is a great game for players who like PvP and guild combat. Joining a guild is expensive, though, so even if that's really your thing, you're still going to have to endure some grinding. This game has chosen to move right away from the trend of viewing things like griefing and farming as problems and made them almost essential.