Read My Blog Here!  My Review is based on WAR's own merits without comparing it to other MMO's out there.

Agree? Disagree? Discuss. Thanks!

P.S.  If you were in the Open Beta of the game, and are still using the Open Beta Client, I highly recommend installing the game from the DVD's.  The intro video is phenomenal and worth the install!

That was a good read. Nice review

Thank you very much!

/blush

Nicely written review, though I don't think you mention some of the glaring issues like RvR Balance etc.

You do however sum up the all the good things in WAR, and I really, seriously hope this game flourishes into a great game!

Very well done. I didn't think that a review without comparison could be done. :)

Thanks for the read and the compliment!

Indeed, I wanted to try something different, as there are SOOO many reviews out there that say WAR = X Game and not = Y Game so it must be lame and/or great!  I wanted to review it for what the game brought to the table.  Please pardon the pun to those who play the table game :)

A review I agree with. I love how you can level solely through PvP.

WAR has very little it one can use to evaluate it on its "own merits".  You can't legitimately review it without mentioning how deritvative it is!

It brings almost nothing new to the table, and manages to make what it has borrowed from other games (one in particular) even more boring, dumbed down, without effort or challenge.  Its terrible, just terrible.

I think the only reason it has enjoyed such a good reception so far (although almost every big-name title does at launch, even AoC) is that it is like WoW, but not WoW.  It is a competent clone that manages to look just different enough to attract the huge number of people who are bored w/ WoW but haven't had any other decent options. 

The PvP in the game is pretty fun in a massive fps sort of way but overall the game lacks depth which is primarily what I'm looking for at the moment.

Originally posted by gorecki

WAR has very little it one can use to evaluate it on its "own merits".  You can't legitimately review it without mentioning how deritvative it is!

It brings almost nothing new to the table, and manages to make what it has borrowed from other games (one in particular) even more boring, dumbed down, without effort or challenge.  Its terrible, just terrible.

I think the only reason it has enjoyed such a good reception so far (although almost every big-name title does at launch, even AoC) is that it is like WoW, but not WoW.  It is a competent clone that manages to look just different enough to attract the huge number of people who are bored w/ WoW but haven't had any other decent options. 

ahhh yeah ok.

so you actually haven't played WAR have you? Nice try though.

To OP. Good article.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, keep it coming!

And here I am thinking people had forgotten how to do that :D Nice read!

now someone please make this a sticky for every attention-whore to read before posting. A very well written, largely unbiased review. No WoW comparison, no fanboi-ism. Obviously the author likes the game so yes, that plays into the review, but I think he makes this clear from the beginning and manages to stay objective throughout the review. Good read, well done...

Everyone is obviously entitled to his/her opinion, but by god I wish they all had the intellectual abilities to express them rather than flaming, ranting and posting meaningless one-liner about how the game sucks....

I liked that paragraph where You write about how Warhammer lore influenced how the dwarfs (dwarves?) look like nowadays. Well it's not only dwarfs, what about orcs? The greenskins were invented by the Game Workshop.

Tolkienian orcs were reigning supreme in D&D, AD&D and other systems through '70s and early '80s till Warhammer's greenskins came to the scene.

Where do You think WoW's orcs come from?

To OP good review.

Originally posted by firecow

Originally posted by gorecki

WAR has very little it one can use to evaluate it on its "own merits".  You can't legitimately review it without mentioning how deritvative it is!

It brings almost nothing new to the table, and manages to make what it has borrowed from other games (one in particular) even more boring, dumbed down, without effort or challenge.  Its terrible, just terrible.

I think the only reason it has enjoyed such a good reception so far (although almost every big-name title does at launch, even AoC) is that it is like WoW, but not WoW.  It is a competent clone that manages to look just different enough to attract the huge number of people who are bored w/ WoW but haven't had any other decent options. 

 

ahhh yeah ok.

so you actually haven't played WAR have you? Nice try though.

 

To OP. Good article.

Yep, good thought there.  Because, nobody that played the game could EVER have anything negative to say about it, right?  Nahh...

I guess that unopened pre-order I just returned to gamestop was an illusion, huh?

Anyway...myself, and the people I know who enjoy some depth, difficulty, risk & challenge in games played dutifully through the beta and came away saying "meh".  I could live with the crappy, clunky combat, stiff animations and coma-inducing PVE, if there were a decent game underneath with some real skill-based PVP.

People say that WoW was made for kiddies.  In a sense, they're right, they made MMOs more accessible for everyone, so i guess you could warp that into the "for kiddies" label.  WAR takes that and dumbs it down so badly that maybe the new analogy should be "for 'special' kiddies'.

As I said...its the perfect American MMO:  Its simplistic, vapid, and derivative...and everybody wins, regardless if how much effort they put in, or how much skill they have, because it just wouldn't be fair to everybody if it was any other way.

Originally posted by MMOPlaya

Read My Blog Here!  My Review is based on WAR's own merits without comparing it to other MMO's out there.

Agree? Disagree? Discuss. Thanks!

P.S.  If you were in the Open Beta of the game, and are still using the Open Beta Client, I highly recommend installing the game from the DVD's.  The intro video is phenomenal and worth the install!

I'm about the read the review, but.... WAIT, WHAT? I've been trying to find out how to open the supposed "cinematic" for a long time now, and it just opens a black, empty box. Are you saying that by uninstalling my Beta client and reinstalling with the DVDs, I can finally see the cinematic?

Good effort.

I am of a different school of thought pertaining to computer game reviews in that I want to become aware of where the developer is actually adding something to the genre.

I only played WAR for 10 days (the 8£ pre-order thingy) since it did not impress me. Personal oppinion, I looked, I played hard, levelled to 23 and ultimately decided this was not for me.

Seen from a neutral standpoint, WAR has PvE with lots of quests, it has PvP, it has objective based PvP, it has story, it has Lore tied up with a feeling of accomplishment (Tome of Knowledge is a fine element), it has Crafting, it has a large World, and it has customizable Player characters where you can separate your [Insert favored class, mine was a Witch Elf] performance as well as your looks.

Looking at that list the obvious reply would propably be: "OK, but how does [element most important to you] compare to this [other MMO] that I know? How does it differ?"

This is not irrelevant, at least not to me. Everyone writing "nice review" do they think that comparison is worthless?

For me, despite all it's features, WAR didn't bring enough new or enhanced elements to the table (public quests) that could compensate for the many areas in which other games (again, in my oppinion) did it better.

I liked Public Quests, it was dynamic, it was fun. Since this was the element that stood out I would spend a lot of time there, since doing the other activities would annoy me since I was spending time doing something that felt un-optimised, un-polished or un-imaginative compared to other games that I had played. So I sort of played Public Quests stale since, to me, that was the fresh new dish on the menu.

So to me, WAR is giving me the same experience that AoC did: One gimmick that was really enjoyable (OK, Conan had two, the first 20 levels and the combat system but on the other hand so much else was staggeringly poorly realised) but bundled up with a lot of other elements that other games do better.

You might feel differently or perhaps you and I have played different games in the past. I won't advice people not to play WAR or any other game, but I will advice players with experience in other games to pick up a trial before buying. There is nothing wrong with taking the car for a test drive before you put down the payment.

only problem i have with war there is no diversity among the healers. Any 1 on 1 fights ends in stalemate no matter what. kind of lame if you ask me.

Originally posted by ParkCarsHere

Originally posted by MMOPlaya

Read My Blog Here!  My Review is based on WAR's own merits without comparing it to other MMO's out there.

Agree? Disagree? Discuss. Thanks!

P.S.  If you were in the Open Beta of the game, and are still using the Open Beta Client, I highly recommend installing the game from the DVD's.  The intro video is phenomenal and worth the install!

 

I'm about the read the review, but.... WAIT, WHAT? I've been trying to find out how to open the supposed "cinematic" for a long time now, and it just opens a black, empty box. Are you saying that by uninstalling my Beta client and reinstalling with the DVDs, I can finally see the cinematic?

Aye, that's what I did because I was tired of clicking on the CINEMATIC button and seeing a black screen.  I believe the cinematic movie was intentionally removed from the beta obviously because it is a large file.  For what it's worth, at least in my case, all of my UI placement settings (hotbar buttons) remained where they were even after the reinstall.
 

Enjoy!