For the past few months I, like many other gamers, had been eagerly awaiting the closed-beta release of Warrior Epic, which, in announcing itself to gamers, had been described a suggested to be a fast-paced, action-based MMORPG. Undeniably, with a description like that, you can easily see why so many of us would have been hanging out to play it, especially in consideration of the disappointments brought by the end of 2007 and the first few releases of 2008. However, rather than presenting gamers with what was promised, Warrior Epic instead served up yet another disappointment. Not only was this game anything but fast or action based, it can hardly even  be described as an MMORPG, considering the fact the game is actually stage based with a specific amount of monsters and timed NPC events. I mean yeah sure, later on you can pitch your group of warriors against those held by other players, in the game’s Warrior Hall feature, but still, I can hardly call this action based, when the combat is simply the same old roll-of-the-dice and mathematic hit rations that gamers and the MMO community has seen time and time again. However, to be honest, the fact this game was mundane was not what has upset me. What has upset me, however, was the way the game went about promoting itself as an Action-Based MMO whilst developers and programmers would have been well aware that what they were building was anything other than an action game. Shame on you, say I and if they are of the same mind as myself, shame on you says the rest of the MMO gaming community. Nevertheless, I will put my perceptions to one side and go about giving this game a normal, objective review, just as I would any other.

To begin, once your start the game, make an account and log-in for the first time, the game begins immediately. Yes, that’s right; you are not given an option as to the appearance of your character. Each and every player begins with the same bald-headed, muscle-bound barbarian and if you ask me, that is a great limitation onto itself, as one of the reasons so many play MMO games is for the customisation options. Nevertheless, beyond this, you begin, as you should, on the first level, which sees you standing by some beast-driven cart in the middle of a wild landscape. Movement of your character is achieved through your normal point-and-click method, as well as basic combat. There are, however, skills which can be gained by your character, yet like other MMORPGS, these can be designated to a hot-key such as 1-9 and used when ever you are engaged in battle. Playing through the first few levels of the game is much like the tutorial systems seen on other RPG and does become boring rather quickly. Just to inform you, it is at this point, during those first few levels, you are prompted as weather you wish to join the stereotypical legions of do-good heroes, or those forces of a more sinister nature. Essentially, this choice will determine how you advance throughout the rest of the game, so it is important to make your decision a good one and one you will be happy with.

As you progress through the game, several characters become available for you to play as, each with their own unique skills, special attacks, strengths and weaknesses. Essentially, these characters, or more specifically classes, include a barbarian, sword master, rouge and a soul hunter, thus reflecting the common strength, range, guile and magic formula often seen in most MMO games.As said before, unlike other MMO games, Warrior Epic sees players making their way through a number of levels, rather than the open worlds commonly seen in the genre and later, allows PvP combat to take place with hall battling hall in a struggle to achieve supremacy. The monsters faced throughout the game range from the very small and insignificant to massive boss-type creatures of great size and un-matched strength. These creatures are also complimented by the games decent graphics. However, MMO grind is still apparent and if you ask me, levelling up, even in the early stages of the game, seemed to take forever and much longer than it should.

Though I was expecting an action game, Warrior Epic was your traditional turn based point-and-click combat game. Despite unique features such as stages and the possibility for players to create and build their own halls, as well as training the Warriors that are attributed to that hall, Warrior Epic seemed slow going, even when compared to other games in the genre. Nevertheless, putting my disappointment to one side, this game still only ranks a 6 out of 10 from me.