Originally published @ Bite My Review on Oct 19, 2009

Prologue

Aion, for those of you living under a large, Tauren-shaped rock, is the latest MMO from NCsoft. Originally released in the Asian markets a year ago the North American launch begins with the expanded 1.5 release. Titled “Shadow of the Belaur” the birds-eye highlights are a significant boost in content from the original including 12 new instances, the Dredgion PvPvE battleground and an additional 10 levels tacked on to the cap.

In the interests of effective time-management (HA!) let me take a moment to point at the review score in the corner. I gave the game a five. Neither positive nor negative, but right in between. In the last week I’ve read more than a few Aion reviews and if I mash them all together I’m not sure they deliver a single nugget of useful information. Reviewers seem to be deathly afraid of actually talking about the game. They seem content to regurgitate press info or something they saw on Wikipedia, as if that could in any way assist a potential game-buyer in making an informed decision. If that’s what you’re looking for you can give this review a pass. My goal, dear reader, is to tell you about Aion. Launch Aion to be precise. Together we shall explore what is and what could be, the pitfalls and possibilities, so that in the end you will be more than capable of deciding if it’s worth 50 of your hard-earned simoleons. Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published @ Bite My Review on Sep 15, 2009

First off let’s get the disclaimer out-of-the-way. I’m fairly new to Aion, having only participated in the last two closed beta events. These tests required a legacy invitation from an earlier event or a confirmed pre-order key. Based on my experience I can say that the closed environment was able to produce a superior quality of play and an honest feeling of cooperation among those involved. The players in the CB events genuinely seemed to care about making the game more fun and even *GASP* finding/fixing the odd bug or three. Never a question was uttered without a helpful response. Communications between players were limited to useful information or the occasional humorous quip. As one progressed into the adolescent/elder (read: PvP) game and associated zones discussions of strategy or attack alerts were the norm. Read the rest of this entry »