Anarchy Online - Living Down the Past
Anarchy Online 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, Anarchy Online 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 Anarchy Online 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.
What's going on, initially, is a battle for control between
giant faceless corporations and gallant freedom fighters,
with independents sitting on the sidelines waiting to see
what happens. That basic plot gets progressed, and the world
developed, in the last two expansions, Shadowlands and Alien
Invasion. Both involve new discoveries which completely
change what you're playing for.
Graphically, AO is showing its age. Shadowlands brought
a huge improvement in graphics that continues in Alien Invasion,
and AO was hugely impressive for its day. Neither of which
makes it any more impressive now. Ships and cities look
great, but organic things like trees and people don't do
so well out of the overall impression of 'hard and shiny'.
Anarchy Online, though, continues to outshine most MMORPGs
when it comes to music and sound effects. When you're walking
round in your hard-core cyberpunk trenchcoat and sunglasses,
the last thing you want is for your hoopy laser pistol to
sound like a constipated duck. Sound generally contributes
excellently to the overall atmosphere of the game.
 AO
offers four races or "breeds" and a huge range
of "professions" that's increased with each expansion.
Different breeds suit different jobs better, but whatever
you want to do, you'll find something to fit. As always,
this ups the 'replayability' of the game considerably. Spells
are handled as technology, through nanos.
AO was one of the first games to offer an instanced mission
system. You can customise a mission to your own tastes,
copy the key for other players if you want, and off you
go. Each mission is pretty much randomly created, so you'll
never hit exactly the same thing twice. The general trend
of the missions is pretty similar, and being random they
never really develop. The expansions have added more plot-specific
quests in addition to the instanced system.
One excellent feature of the combat system is that it allows
you to write little scripts that you can set to take your
character automatically through a stream of actions, be
that a series of attacks, or walking, stopping, healing,
and walking again. Of course, this system can also be used
to generate killer dance routines, and it is.
 What
Anarchy Online really has going for it is that its community
seems to be really excellent. Whether its poor reputation
has put off a particular element is open to debate, but
in general the community is helpful and supportive, and
abuse-lite. PvP is confined to particular areas and seems
to function well.
The Alien Invasion expansion is geared specifically for
high-level characters who've played through the rest of
the game already. It continues to provide a challenge for
them, but would be difficult for newbies to get into.
Anarchy Online certainly isn't the best thing ever in online
gaming. But there's no way it deserves its poor reputation,
either. Since the 2001 launch, Funcom has changed the server
system, the GUI, and spent countless thousands of hours
bug-fixing. It's an immersive, atmospheric, genuinely enjoyable
science-fiction MMORPG, and there aren't too many of those
around.
Overall Rating: 7.8/10
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