Dragon Oath is an MMO published by ChangYou. Before this I have never even heard of them but apparently they're in the works for other MMOs in the US as well. The best way I can describe this is that it is like an updated and improved version of JX2. Although not by much, the little differences make the game feel nearly completely different. The basis for the game itself is similar to JX2, Zhu Xian, and 9Dragons. The key difference is that they don't put any restrictions on joining clans.

Story:

N/A - Something about Song Dynasty or something. Go read it on the website

Graphics:

By today's standards, this is nothing amazing. The character looks are very limited and the only customizability so far is that of your clan's wardrobe. However, each of the clans have a significantly different look which is a plus. Its easy to identify who is what clan and what their general abilities are. Even though this is nice, more customization in general would have been nice. The monsters look fairly different and there isn't much repeat of character models except for mobs that are involved in the special events. There are no repeats for quite some time too.

Gameplay:

Character creation is very

Like I did with Atlantica Online a while back (I need to go redo that entry some day), I have decided to speak out against Nexon's behavior in localizing the game for North America and Canada. So far it has been one of the worst localizations I have seen to date. If you were thinking about playing it, I recommend you think again. If you decide you don't want to, I will provide a few alternatives you can play if you desire a similar game. NOTHING was changed between Closed Beta and Early Access. No serious bugs were actually created until they implemented these new patches that did apparently nothing but worsen the overall gameplay experience. If the manage to fix a majority of these problems, then its fine but until they do, its complete crap.

1) The Fatigue System

Each day you can only enter about 150 rooms total. When you run out, you can no longer complete stages. All you can do is go PvP at the arena until the reset at 6 AM. This is by far the most restricting system I have ever dealt with. The average stage for low level players can be completed in under 6 minutes and this is almost always 8 or more rooms. This will not last most players more than 3 hours. Becau

Red Cliff is another MMO released by Perfect World Entertainment. If you don't recognize this name, they're the ones responsible for Perfect World, Q-World, Ether Saga, and Jade Dynasty/Celestial Destroyer/Zhu Xian Online. Like all of their previous games, Red Cliff is just another repackaging of another one of their game with different character models and enemies. If you've played them before, its kind of the same as any of the others on the list (except for maybe Ether Saga, I haven't played that one). There are some minor differences, but nothing significant. To me, the best I can characterize this is an updated version of Zhu Xian Online.

The epic Red Cliff movie of 2008 and 2009 has only made this game look worse as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjIV_suXuCw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZsMDgRhWsg

Story:

The game is based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era specifically the Battle of Red Cliffs (Chi Bi) where the small alliance of Sun Quan and Liu Bei managed to defeat Cao Cao's far superior navy thanks to some luck. However, considering what is possible in the game, it is not based on part of the time line at all. Can someone say cheap name cash in?

Graphic

Throughout the years, Dynasty Warriors has been hated as being repetitive and button mashing. The difference between Dynasty Warriors and the other series is that Koei does it right. Which other company recently has actually managed to create a good classic beat em up or hack and slash title? I can't think of many good ones that weren't done by Koei and the others that tried to copy it failed (Devil Kings and N3 comes to mind). To date, I believe Warriors Orochi 2 is probably the best beat em up game available and I decided to write this review for it. This review is based on the PS2 version. The 360 version has some pretty prominent bugs at first but I think its all fixed by now. In another week I hope to be able to review Red Cliff for you guys. Seems like a decent game so far but the problem is its cubizone

Story:

Each of the different factions in the game have their own storyline that has a little difference. However, it all culmulates in the final showdown between True Orochi and you. The title of the Japanese version references the return of Orochi. There are a total of 5 storylines. Shu, Wu, Wei, Samurai, and Orochi. The only story that is different is Orochi's which is a p

I always find it funny that people will always try to blame everything on video games. I'm looking at you Germany. Using a single event to justify massive reliation against video games is not okay. This isn't far from getting on to "internment camp" area and I AM NOT KIDDING. Sorry if this offends anyone who has had ancesors in an internment or concentration camp area. Randomly shutting down "gaming" websites is just poor behavior on the part of the government. This subject also can't be discussed without ever mentioning Mr. Jack Thompson the self proclaimed "video game industry's worst nightmare". Fortunately he ended up on Penn and Teller's Bullshit making him and basically everyone who was against video games look like complete idiots.

The video game defense is something that lawyers have tried to use like the insanity plea. The idea is to either get a lower sentence or to try to convince people that the person who committed the crime is not guilty because they were not aware of their actions or they were being influenced by something else (the video game) to do what they did. Luckily, this almost never works because video ga

Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) Online was a game that I was eager to play a long time ago after I tried Lineage 2. Back then it would have been great, but now it seems very questionable. There was a nice concept behind it and it looks nice, but the actual implementation of the system is very lacking. I found myself having numerous issues with the controls despite having the option of choosing either keyboard or mouse movement.

Story:

Didn't care. I stopped caring after the village raid or whatever in the beginning.

Graphics:

For a game that is a few years old, it still looks pretty nice. The characters look nice although they could use more variety. The towns feel a bit plain but once you're out into the later areas, it looks really nice. The only problem is you have to up the gamma settings a bit so it isn't too dark. The annoying part for me was that the game didn't have a built in window mode so you have to use the hidden ctrl + enter or some other combination of keys to set the game to window mode. It got annoying to have to do that every time I played. If you don't do this, you get disconnected if you alt + tab for too long.

Gameplay:

Initial character creatio

I made a rant about random item mall boxes a few months back. Never thought I would need to add to it.

http://my.mmosite.com/blog/tihoa/blog/item/5639f729dbba3f4ab36bc62782a7703c.html

Now I feel I must take my anger with this up to the next level because of Nexon. The reason? Dungeon Fighter Online. They have taken this to the next level with the Gacha Machines with probably the most absurd type of randomness possible. Not only are the items randomized, the color of the item are randomized, the stats of the item are randomized, AND the rarity of the item is randomized.

The problem with this randomness is that you need the item mall to get the clothing you want. All you can do is specify the character you want clothing for. Then you have to pay up some Gatcha coins and pray you get the one you want. If you don't, too bad try again. The screenshots shown at PAX list the items at $2 per try for coins in batches of 10 for $20. I don't expect anyone to go for a decent set without at least spending $40. Lottery will also allow the GMs to fix and change the odds of any of the items they wish to without notifying the players and can stand their point by saying that the

Original list

http://www.freemmogamer.com/2009/09/top-10-free-to-play-mmorpgs-with-speedy.html

I'm 100% sure that this "easy to level" stuff only applies up to a certain level. All games are like that and at some point it will turn into an epic grind. That point is determined by the developers.

10) With Your Destiny

At first glance this looks fast but then so did MU. How did they counter this? There's 400 possible levels for your character. To top it off there's the God, Celestial God, etc. ranks as well which could be other ways to extend the grind. It doesn't matter if the first 50 levels are fast. You still have 350 more to go. Its like playing Disgaea if it was online. Are you really prepared to grind 30 levels in the same spot?

9) Gods War Online

It explains itself. The fact that you have to go AFK to level up your character doesn't mean its fast. It means its so grindy that no human player could ever get far into the game. Shouldn't you be fun playing your game? Not waiting for the game to catch up so you can continue playing? Also, wouldn't this create an enormous bot problem because you can't tell normal players from bots? If bots are few in num

Front Mission 5 was the last of the Front Mission series (to date) that sums up all of the Front Mission games. It was never released outside of Japan to my knowledge but there is an English translation patch for the game that is nearly complete. There is a Front Mission shooter coming out for the 360 soon but I don't consider it to be part of the main series like Gunhazard. Front Mission 5 is one of the best turn based RPGs that I have ever played. As for MMOs, I'm still waiting for Nexon to get on with Dungeon Fighter Online.

Story:

The story follows the life of Walter who experienced nearly the entire Front Mission history from the first major conflict in the first Front Mission game to the outbreak of the final conflict at the start of Front Mission 3 when MIDAS is stolen. Near the end of the 1st war, Waltar and his friend Randy become pilots for Wanzers (giant robots). Unfortunately an insane Glenn rips out Randy's cockpit and kills him which in turn sets the tone for the rest of the game. The Scars of War refers to the scars Walter and Glenn receive at the beginning of the game.

Graphics:

For the most part, I would say it is above that of Valkyrie Profile 2 and Final

Over the last decade or so, I've played a lot of games. The following are the bosses that I consider to be the most ridiculous and most annoying to fight. Simply either because they are ridiculously tough or just have an annoying ability that is difficult to counter. These bosses tend to be extremely cheap or overpowered or both. Final Fantasy didn't make it to the list because of Auto-Life and Armaggeddon spam. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever fought that boss.

1) Shin Megami Tensei Series (Digital Devil Saga, Nocturne, and Persona dunno about Raidou)

Boss: Almost any fight but especially the cameo battles

These bosses are loaded with the cheapest and most powerful attacks with almost no way to counter them except through trial and error. In the special optional boss battles, the boss will consider any abilities that nullify or absorb an attack to be a cheap shot. In response they will instantly kill your entire party (9999 damage to everyone when max hp is 999) until you restructure your team. Most of these battles are a test of endurance against an enemy with insane damage. You have to be careful because if the battle drags out too long, they will use t