Anarchy Reigns Down On Me

Something struck me as odd from this sort of surprise title.  I had heard nothing of the game until I saw a box for it on the shelf of my local game shack and thought to look it up based on it's art design and colorful cast of characters.  What I found was a game that is half beat-em up and half bullshit.  If you have ever desired a chance to play a forgettable single player campaign and unforgiving online multiplayer modes, then strap yourself in and welcome to the super stylized world of Anarchy Reigns.

Rift: Good But Not Good Enough

Rift: Planes of Telara.  I have a lot to say about this rare gem of development perfection.  When I first heard of "Rift" the very first thing that came to mind was yet another Korean grinder MMO.  And I've had quite enough of those.  The difference between the "Old Age" of MMO's and the current one seems to be based on the fundamental gameplay mechanics.  Old games like Asheron's Call, Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot...These games all actively promoted unity in the community - a necessity to play a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME with more emphasis on the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER part and less on the...whatever it is the current generation seems to be focusing on.

Rift started out fantastic - in the beta, the game was so incredibly polished, it felt like I was playing any of the other current MMO's on the market 1-2 years after they released.  The game was a masterpiece of design success.  The developers had actually finished so much of what they planned, I had read several times that they were already working on post-launch end game content that would go live within the first 2-3 months.  That's a damn miracle - even World of Warcraft - who's launch is scarcely remembered, was a pile of shit.  I remember waiting for the servers to come back up from downtime more than I remember playing WoW during it's first month.  In Rift's first month, server downtime has never been more than 10-15 minutes at a time.  Trion Worlds is literally one of the best, classiest and well organized developers I have ever seen, and I've been playing games, specifically MMORPG's, for 12 years.

Exclusivity

The whole "console war" topic really makes me think sometimes.  I think people should buy the console that has the games they want to play and not buy the one that all their friends have.  Someone's gotta break the mold and be the trend setter.  In recent news, it was announced that a former game project, simply code named "Project Dark" will be released late this year as the spiritual successor to 2009's PS3 Game of the Year, Demon's Souls.

Demon's Soul was a fantastic, brutal, unforgiving dungeon crawler which took place in a medieval fantasy setting.  The game was about you, designing a character and then customizing it to play however you want, but what it really boiled down to was magic and swords.  You could use either or, or a combination and variety thereof.  The game was brutal and difficult, each death costly and proving to be a major setback.  Players who are more accustomed to todays standard "run in with complete disregard to personal safety" in game play found themselves at the receiving end of a premium rager.  The learning curve was painful, but just...so rewarding.  You needed to learn to block, to roll, to dodge, to counter attack.  You needed to play it safe at all times otherwise you will easily find yourself dying young.  When you die in this game, you leave a pool of blood behind with all the souls [read: money] you collected during the level, and start all the way back at the beginning.  If you die again, your previous blood stain is removed in favor of the new one, and with it, all the souls you collected.  That means that each death was very, very costly and players needed to tread lightly.