Conquer Online - Ooo, Pretty
Conquer Online is a free MMO on-line role-playing game,
which was originally based in China, but is now operating
out of the US. It's adapted to the Western market with unusual
smoothness, and yet without losing its unique identity and
'feel'.
Visually, Conquer Online is astounding. Colors are sumptuous,
textures excellent, as is the level of detail. Stand somewhere
you can see a long way and just stare. It's isometric view,
3D characters on 2D backgrounds, but that simple statement
really doesn't do justice to the feeling of depth and richness
in the world. Character customisation is a bit limited -
you can dye and cut your character's hair, choose their
sex and class, and that's about it. You can dye your armour,
too, but we'll talk about that later.
There's no music in Conquer Online. I'm not sure that's
a bad thing; while you run across the odd game with good
music, mostly you end up just switching it off and playing
MP3s anyway. Sound effects are minimal but at least not
incredibly annoying.
Gameplay is pretty simple, like most MMORPGs. You choose
whether you want to be an Archer, Taoist, Trojan, or Warrior,
then you go out and fight, trade, mine, or just role-play,
whatever suits you. The UI is point-and-click, though one
important thing to note is your PK status. When you first
start, you'll want to change this to PEACE, or you'll be
attacking everyone you want to talk to.
Compared to some other games, the world of CO is actually
pretty small. The map is made even smaller by the weird
and kind of irritating fact that the quickest way to move
around is to jump. Everywhere you go, people are jumping
around like some kind of obscure cultural festival.
The character classes change a bit at level forty, mostly
adding an extra skill, but splitting the Taoist into Water
and Fire, effectively creating another class. There's also
a heinously complicated Rebirth system, where you can go
on a quest which allows you to change your character class
once you reach level 120. It knocks you back down to level
15, but with items, abilities, and opportunities only available
to Reborn characters. This is quite an innovative solution
to what to do with immensely powerful characters to stop
their players getting bored.
You can upgrade, or change the color of, items in two ways:
at lower levels, by using a meteor, and at higher levels,
by using a Dragon Ball, which the developers will sell you
for real-world cash.
CO, like a lot of other online RPGs, has a guild system,
and regular large-scale special event guild wars. You can
also own and decorate a home, marry, and divorce.
Even though the game isn't massive, the download IS. CO's
install runs almost to a cool half a gig. The developers
have two strategies for getting round this. First, they
have about a dozen different sites to download the game
from. Finding the server closest to you can cut download
time to a tenth. They'll also sell you the game on CD. The
game size and all the pretty graphics mean you're going
to be a lot happier running this game on a high-end system
over a cable modem. You'll need to regularly download patches,
too, but on the other hand, new servers and new content
are constantly being added. The support site is easy to
use, contains a bunch of useful information, and unlike
some other games is written in excellent easy to follow
English.
Compared to some other games in the genre, the scope of
activity in Conquer Online might seem a bit limited. There's
questing, but all the quests are pretty much the same, and
there's no linear plot development. The map is small and
the number of different monsters quite limited, so the variety
of the gameplay is going to become an issue over time. A
low number of character classes and no race variation cuts
down the "replayability". But while it might not
hold your attention forever, it's still a real pleasure
to play.
Overall Rating: 8.2/10
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