The realms of Everquest have provided a safe haven for many confused and obsessed gamers of the PC world for a while now, playing through closed curtains, and communicating with “Frodo_baggins69” via their keyboard. The Baldur’s Gate series for the PS2 provided a much more mainstream base of support, with the gameplay geared more towards instant action, rather than to rolling 2 die to see if you can hit your enemy. The two games have now been combined, using Snowblind’s engine from the Baldur’s Gate games in the world of Everquest to create Champions of Norrath.
The game has been designed so that you don’t have to play on your own, as traipsing through endless forests and dungeons tends to wear a little thin when you’re on your own. For the teamplay element, you can play through the story with a mate, or three others if you’ve got a multitap. If you’re a true Everquest fan (and therefore have no real friends) then the game also features a lovely online mode (which we’ll come to later), where you, and up to three other virtual champions can go through the story together.
After choosing how many fellow adventurers you want to follow you around, it’s time to get to saving the realm of Norrath! The story is set out in a rather dramatic monologue; the always-nasty Goblins and Orcs have combined forces, and started a big war with everyone. Apparently you (and your mates) are the realm’s only hope. You now get your chance to choose your champion. There are four races to choose from (both male and female forms); Barbarian warriors, Wood elves, Erudite mages, and the dark elves. Each race has its own special attributes and limitations, as well as items and weapons that are specific to them. Resisting the temptation to be a barbarian and bash anything that moved, I went for the ever-stylish Legolas-a-like wood elf ranger, complete with bow/sword combo.
The environments all look very lovely, and even though the game is using a fairly zoomed-out camera view, you can still spot loads of detail, from the swaying trees, heat haze from fires, and some lovely water ripples, to the splinters from crates you can smash up along your journey. The characters look nice too, with a high level of detail and animation. The best part of the characters, though, has to be what you can do with them via the Inventory. In the inventory you can fiddle about with your character. This can be changing the weapon he/she’s carrying for a better one you’ve picked up, to changing the armour, or enchanting the items with stuff like extra strength, or lightning damage! Although the game appears to be all about action and storyline, the true meat in the game is juggling items in your inventory, and generally tinkering with your character. This is a good thing, because for the action junkie the game is still pretty good without it, but the more ardent RPG fans can find loads more to do as well.
After enchanting my ranger bow with +15% strength, +10% dexterity, and fire damage (which HAS to be seen), I was truly becoming hooked. I suddenly had the urge to board up my windows, play countless PC games, and watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back! I was so confident that I thought I could take on three green Orcs, a red one, a weird blue one that spits electricity at you, and one big-ass spider - needless to say I didn’t last long, but my virtual ass-kicking did look rather nice, and even with that much action going on, the frame rate never dropped below 60 fps, which was nice.
As mentioned earlier, if you have a phobia of meeting people in person, or are stuck in a particular area rampant with multicoloured Orcs and massive spiders, you can always connect to the net and get an “expert” to help you out. It sounds great in theory, being the first RPG to be online on the PS2, but with anything slightly innovative, there’s always a “but”. Sadly, the ‘but’ wins yet again. As with many third-party PS2 titles, the online mode’s presentation isn’t up to much. There aren’t any lobbies, or ways of finding other people online to organise a game. You simply have to search for a room, and hope someone’s sitting about with one already created, waiting for someone to join them, as you can’t join mid-game. My only contact with someone was when I created my own room, after phoning a friend, and asking him to join. After ten minutes of waiting, he joined, and we loaded up the level. After about another ten minutes of what I must say, was rather fun hacking and slashing, he got disconnected, and I started experiencing network problems. He never came back. Attempt two saw “Legolas King” join me in a quest. All was well and good apart from the fact that I was level 12, and he was level 32, and considerably younger than me. The “king” proceeded to summon his high-level spells that decimated everything on-screen, and stealing all of the stuff they dropped as well. Not to mention calling me a “n00b” when I went the wrong way in the forest caverns. The online mode is good, if you already know some mates to go online with that, otherwise it’s pretty much a crap shoot, and most of the time it’s crap.
As well as the game’s other good points, it does have some downsides. Unlike the slower-paced RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, where you can choose from a plethora of moves, you can only slash/bludgeon, and then cast a spell if you’re a mage, or shoot some arrows if you’re a ranger. The levels can also get repetitive, with the dungeon-cavern combo being a favourite in this game. If you’re playing on your own, this can start to wear a bit thin; hammering X as fast as you can, while trying to get to the end of what seems like an endless corridor full of the same damn monsters. One level in particular involved a twenty-five minute section of an ant hill, slashing ant after ant after ant…. Needless to say, it felt like five years had been sapped from my life, and suicide was considered.
Champions Of Norrath is a good RPG, with some classic “fetch this, and kill that” missions, that are all done very well. It caters for both the novice and devoted RPG fan, with loads of depth if you want to dive in, or a shallow area for the weary. It’s also great to play through with a couple of mates (if they’re willing to give up countless hours round your house on it). The game only reaches a sticky patch when you start to wonder how many dungeons and caves you’ve been through, and why your thumb hurts… You’ll be playing this for a while after you get it, but only if you can get over the samey gameplay that begins to descend, especially in the combat.
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