Yesterday my day and a half downloading session for the talk of the town, latest MMORPG addiction ended. This might be the biggest file I’ve ever downloaded ever since I discovered a wonder of the world called the internet. Yes you’re right I’m talking about Aion: The tower of eternity baby! The client itself never fails to make my disk drive cry in dismay. “Aion is a bitch” According to my brother who extracted the installer file without even thinking of cleaning or even backing up externally the “old files” that dwells in my disk drive. If there’s a will there a way; Installed it patched it, played.

Entering Aion is such a sweet sensation. It’s like standing in a flowery meadow for hours waiting for the sun to shine. The picturesque of a landscape filled with trees decorated with pink leaves, floating islands, buildings that stand a top of the cliff and waterfall to complete the scenery. Such a fantazzztic log in screen! This is almost certainly designed to invite and attract player to join in the world behind. What more can you find behind those entry form?

After logging in you will see the terms of agreement reminding players that they are bounded by a contract by playing this game, this is actually typical scenery in most NCSOFT made game. By agreeing you will be sent straight to Boracay! What I mean is the character selection page is on a beach complete with palm trees as a background design. I found it weird at first, it’s like of all the possible designs they chose a beach for that! To enter the game you need to select your race, are you going to become an Elyos or an Asmodian? It’s all up to you. There is a race description upon choosing that will help you decide to whom to side.

One of the key selling point of an MMO is the character selection page, Gender bound classes will surely assassinate the role playing factor of the game while some gamers do not prefer to see their twin during their adventures. Attack of the clones anyone? Not in AION! NCSOFT provided us with a revolutionary character creation feature wherein you just don’t mix and match you really customize! I have seen this feature before with the game Perfect World but AION’s system is indeed better and has a real time graphics that will sure NOT make your character looks like a cartoon character or even a distorted polygon robot even if you purposely altered a body part of your choice into abnormality. In their character creation area you have a privilege to resize or reduce almost any parts of your body from head to toe.

You can be a fat man with a small head, a giant or even a dwarf with gigantic feet! They also offers you with at least 30+ types of hair style and 20+ types of face which you can even ALTER in the advanced section that you can see in the character creation screen. You can also add some tattoos or mustache if you prefer. In popular culture some players even created their character inspired with the face of US President Barrack Obama. I even unintentionally customized my character to almost look like Victor Basa (A Filipino Model) and Squall Leonhart (FFVIII Main Character). There are a thousand or even millions of possibilities so it means there is a rare chance to meet a character that looks EXACTLY like you. Probably the best character customization feature I’ve seen.

A cinematic of an epic battle between the skirmishes of 2 opposing forces after the scene you will gain the control of your character. As a mage of the Elyos I was transported to the starting realm called “Poeta” particularly in Akarios Plains and my life begins in Aion. My mission is to ascend and become a Daeva and gain my first wings.

You won’t be lost upon stepping inside with the help of the interactive tutorials with matching voice over’s and pre-built videos. To begin your daily life as a mercenary talk to the Elpas the NPC with a blue icon over his head this stands near your respawn point. Do as much as quest as you can from our friendly NPC for the reason that you will level up thru questing until you reached level 9-10 to receive your first campaign quest. Taking up quest means making you occupied rather than killing some monsters all the time.

NCSoft’s modified version of CryEngine brings life to this virtual realm. You can appreciate every minute you spend in playing this game by just looking at the magnificent breath taking scenery that you can see in the game. The animation is smooth and close to perfection. I really love how the “Flight” transfers my character to a place to another. I will definitely spend my precious time playing this game. I wonder when I will reach the tower of eternity.

 Cross Posted from my Blog