Flying in before the Week is out!

Muahaha, cutting it fine, really, but still.

The week has been mostly full of logging into WoW for a breif moment, with a side serving of the old Civilization 4 or whatever has interested me in this horribly hot week we've had.

That said, the Aion - Tower of Eternity Beta got off to a fizzled start on Thursday, when the European Login got swamped and promptly crashed. Being lucky enough to be included I persevered and ultimately got online, So here comes some thoughts as they are.

Aion - The Tower of Eternity, for what I know of it so far, Is a PvPvE game, whatever the hell thats meant to be (Someone tell corporate marketing to make something less complicated!) - I mean, we all have an Idea of what it means, but still, come on!

I can't personally comment on the latter parts of the game, as the level cap is currently 20 - and you can't enter the abyss PvPvE area untill 25 as a minimum, but still - Oh, PvP will grant experience - which is a nice addition that many games had been lacking in the past. (And are now implementing, Ohai WoW) That said, though, apparently Aion was lacking it on release and promptly patched it in.

That brings me to the premiere and main point, Aion is, in all essence, a polished game. It's had the benefit of being out for nearly a Year in Asia, and time has done it justice for the EU/NA Marketplace. Most of the issues are "lost in translation" bugs, such as no voice-overs yet, some text clips in boxes which were formerly occupied by Korean, Chinese or Japanese script. This is mainly menu options, descriptions and some tooltips. Nothing that would majorly kill your fun, but niggling enough to need a lot of time to go through it all to make sure it gets fixed.

I'll spare you a majority of the "Oh my good jesus it looks fantastic" routine, you've probably heard it alot. Nevertheless, Aion does look fantastic. I had some graphical errors, though I put that down to the gajillion people who were in the starting area along with my choice to run Windowed. The Characters also seem more alive - if its raining, your character will often become annoyed and magic a large tropical leaf out of nowhere and hold it over their head.

The ingame emotes are pretty damn good, you can magic a chair up and sit down, just to name one. Leaving your character Idle no longer means idle, as if left in water it will attempt to catch a fish with their hands, or pace a little if left unattended for too long. (In a circular static manner, but worth mentioning nonetheless) This, combined with the ridiculous amount of bars included in the character creation to customize your avatar leaves you with a distinct impression, perhaps, just maybe, theres a little person alive in front of you.

Or maybe thats just my insanity talking.

This brings me to what Aion is, not to be rude at all, but its gimmick. Aion is, afterall, a game based on the premise of getting wings and being able to fly. In this it executes it well from what ive played with so far. You can fight whilst in the air, and as your wings operate on a timed basis, you have to make sure you leave some safe ground to fly to should it become necessary in combat, afterall, a Daeva falling to his or her death would be rather undignified, no?

Aion is definately a game worth getting if you like a decent game in and of itself, and perhaps moreso if your into the PvP side of things. I'm not sure if Aion IS primarily a PvP game - as I know it features its own share of PvE Encounters on a group level, but I know it factors into the equation more-so than others, being a casual pvp'er at best it makes me think more cautiously about purchasing a copy. Nevertheless, The fact I had fun in an MMO for the first time in a while definately makes me consider, very seriously, purchasing Aion.