Aion Review

shakermaker0 · October 2009

Gamezine's Aion review: Click Here

Eben · October 2009

"Aion on first impressions feels like Frankenstein’s Monster. You can only imagine too well that madcap developers took the best and finest samples of all the MMORPG’s on the market and stitched them together haphazardly hoping to achieve greatness. For the most part it’s an admirable effort, but to be brutally honest Aion is stale, old and really very redundant to the genre. "

"Aion, like all recent MMORPGs, offers somewhat of a story, quite fittingly of gods, war and fury. The story goes a little something like this: the world was in peace, protectors got a little bit shirty, the world was torn a sunder. Obviously it’s more complicated and deserving of the more eastern style; think androgynous forest people and massive boobies."

Yup.

Love how at the end he mentiones that PVP in WAR is better than this.

Pretty much summed up my entire opinion of the game. Accurate review.

Off-topic, love the avatar shakermaker0.

Yamota · October 2009

Well written review but cant say I agree with it. Warhammer Onlines PvP (endgame) is broken by lag where as in this game it works well on an average rig that I got. So in the end it is quite fun.

However it does lack innovation but has enough content to keep alot of people busy for a while. But if NCSoft want to keep those people busy they need to add alot of stuff to the end game to make it more about raiding fortresses and ganking people.

mmaize · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

"Aion on first impressions feels like Frankenstein’s Monster. You can only imagine too well that madcap developers took the best and finest samples of all the MMORPG’s on the market and stitched them together haphazardly hoping to achieve greatness. For the most part it’s an admirable effort, but to be brutally honest Aion is stale, old and really very redundant to the genre. "
"Aion, like all recent MMORPGs, offers somewhat of a story, quite fittingly of gods, war and fury. The story goes a little something like this: the world was in peace, protectors got a little bit shirty, the world was torn a sunder. Obviously it’s more complicated and deserving of the more eastern style; think androgynous forest people and massive boobies."
Yup.
Love how at the end he mentiones that PVP in WAR is better than this.
Pretty much summed up my entire opinion of the game. Accurate review.
Off-topic, love the avatar shakermaker0.

Right because Gamezine is the leading authority on reviews? Nevermind any of the below because unless they are negative enough, they aren't credible reviews:

As seen at http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/932526-aion/index.html

Boomtown 10/14/09 Review 8 out of 10

1UP 10/13/09 Review C

GameFocus 10/13/09 Review 9.3 out of 10

ImpulseGamer 10/12/09 Review 9.1 out of 10

AceGamez 10/09/09 Review 7 out of 10

IGN 10/08/09 Review 8.5 out of 10

Gameplanet 10/08/09 Review 9 out of 10

Gamer Limit 10/08/09 Review 8.5 out of 10

Cheat Code Central 10/02/09 Review 3.7 out of 5

NZGamer 09/30/09 Review 8.8 out of 10

How about IGN?? Of course it's not credible it gave an 8.5

We already know what MMORPG gave it and how the site is supposedly no longer credible for it's high review...

RPGFan? OMG a 90...wtf...

Metacritic? Is there hope....Aww...so sorry..they gave it an 81

Gamespot...NFW...an 8.2...

Yeah...pretty much enough said as far as where you can take your opinion of this "accurate" review.

thamighty213 · October 2009

Review stinks more than the wonderful "it took as long to get from 10-11 as it did 1-10" at PC zone a review that was so blatantly obvious the reviewer hadnt played past that stage.

This one is more journalistic crap even his research is skewed.

Its the crytek engine from Farcry not the crysis engine. FAIL journalism

WAR's PVP sucked ass badly and a lot of his other observations are crap.

How can you score WOW a 9/10 or whatever then something that does everything it does but better in a lot of places less.

mmaize · October 2009

Originally posted by thamighty213

Review stinks more than the wonderful "it took as long to get from 10-11 as it did 1-10" at PC zone a review that was so blatantly obvious the reviewer hadnt played past that stage.

This one is more journalistic crap even his research is skewed.

Its the crytek engine from Farcry not the crysis engine. FAIL journalism

WAR's PVP sucked ass badly and a lot of his other observations are crap.

How can you score WOW a 9/10 or whatever then something that does everything it does but better in a lot of places less.

The FAIL part about getting the engine wrong....I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Thank you for that Thamighty213!!

Eben · October 2009

Gee, the guys with the winged ballerina sigs disagree. Go figure. LOL.

Oh, and btw, based on your own link @ gamerankings.com;

Warhammer Online - 85.37%

Aion - 81.54%

So I guess it would be fair to say that all reviews are unbiased and fair, right? Based on reviews, is WAR a better game?

Spin away, my little fanboys, spin away.

Cik_Asalin · October 2009

Originally posted by thamighty213

Review stinks more than the wonderful "it took as long to get from 10-11 as it did 1-10" at PC zone a review that was so blatantly obvious the reviewer hadnt played past that stage.

This one is more journalistic crap even his research is skewed.

Its the crytek engine from Farcry not the crysis engine. FAIL journalism

WAR's PVP sucked ass badly and a lot of his other observations are crap.

How can you score WOW a 9/10 or whatever then something that does everything it does but better in a lot of places less.

journalisim doesn't really exist anymore; this is an opinion piece, a review. It has no more or less credibility than a review done by a contributor at mmorpg.com or some other blogger. . .they are opinion deliveries for the most part with lack of fairness or balance that extends into the depth of the topic their reporting on, like in this case.

I happen to agree that the mind-numbing redundency of the pvp found in WAR is horribly bad and yet appealing to anyone with OCD. It's my opinion, but I contrast that with the greater depth and breadth of Aion's more dynamically and changing PvP game-play environment and game-play pvevp mechanics. /shrugs

pepsibottle · October 2009

Aion on first impressions feels like Frankenstein’s Monster. You can only imagine too well that madcap developers took the best and finest samples of all the MMORPG’s on the market and stitched them together haphazardly hoping to achieve greatness. For the most part it’s an admirable effort, but to be brutally honest Aion is stale, old and really very redundant to the genre.

I can't agree more.

I GIVE THIS REVIEW 10/10

Finally someone trashing this piece of crap.

pepsibottle · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

Yup.
Love how at the end he mentiones that PVP in WAR is better than this.
Pretty much summed up my entire opinion of the game. Accurate review.

Exactly.

mmaize · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

Gee, the guys with the winged ballerina sigs disagree. Go figure. LOL.
Oh, and btw, based on your own link @ gamerankings.com;
Warhammer Online - 85.37%
Aion - 81.54%
So I guess it would be fair to say that all reviews are unbiased and fair, right? Based on reviews, is WAR a better game?
Spin away, my little fanboys, spin away.

There's no need to spin anything. Using the same reviews WoW got a 90+ and even AoC got an 80+ and in each of those I can find an extremely low review and extremely high ones. So the question is, what does that tell you?

What it tells me is that your not going to take one review whether its the best review ever or the worst and make it "THE" accurate review about the game because just like with your own opinions the review is done in the eyes of the reviewer more often then not because things such as "fun" is relative. Express your personal opinion all you want to as there are a few million that have their own opinions now as to which is accurate? Either we let each player figure that out for themselves or we go by whatever the industry standard is which in this case seems to be an average of all. So there's no need for me to spin anything being that the vast majority of reviews for Aion are positive. Warhammer Online wasn't a horrible game, it was a game with great potential that had major flaws which doesn't fly in a player base as unforgiving as we are today. In the MMO market there really aren't any second chances in the eyes of the vast majority and if NCSoft has learned anything they will take advantage of the huge interest and success this game has had in its early stages and work their butts off to keep it.

Spaceweed10 · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

"Aion on first impressions feels like Frankenstein’s Monster. You can only imagine too well that madcap developers took the best and finest samples of all the MMORPG’s on the market and stitched them together haphazardly hoping to achieve greatness. For the most part it’s an admirable effort, but to be brutally honest Aion is stale, old and really very redundant to the genre. "
"Aion, like all recent MMORPGs, offers somewhat of a story, quite fittingly of gods, war and fury. The story goes a little something like this: the world was in peace, protectors got a little bit shirty, the world was torn a sunder. Obviously it’s more complicated and deserving of the more eastern style; think androgynous forest people and massive boobies."
Yup.
Love how at the end he mentiones that PVP in WAR is better than this.
Pretty much summed up my entire opinion of the game. Accurate review.
Off-topic, love the avatar shakermaker0.

Both games held my attention for a couple of weeks, before the obvious limitations became apparent. I would give 6/10 to both, and advise veterans of the genre not to bother.

Eben · October 2009

Originally posted by mmaize

There's no need to spin anything. Using the same reviews WoW got a 90+ and even AoC got an 80+ and in each of those I can find an extremely low review and extremely high ones. So the question is, what does that tell you?
What it tells me is that your not going to take one review whether its the best review ever or the worst and make it "THE" accurate review about the game because just like with your own opinions the review is done in the eyes of the reviewer more often then not because things such as "fun" is relative. Express your personal opinion all you want to as there are a few million that have their own opinions now as to which is accurate? Either we let each player figure that out for themselves or we go by whatever the industry standard is which in this case seems to be an average of all. So there's no need for me to spin anything being that the vast majority of reviews for Aion are positive. Warhammer Online wasn't a horrible game, it was a game with great potential that had major flaws which doesn't fly in a player base as unforgiving as we are today. In the MMO market there really aren't any second chances in the eyes of the vast majority and if NCSoft has learned anything they will take advantage of the huge interest and success this game has had in its early stages and work their butts off to keep it.

No, what it tells me is that all the online reviews, this site included, are bullshit. It's hard to be objective with a review, when you are getting paid to display ads for the item being reviewed. It's counterproductive.

Would you expect to walk into a Toyota dealership and have the salesman tell you the car you're looking at, the car in the posters all over the walls, with all the commercials on TV, would you expect him to tell you straight-up that it was a piece of shit? Simple fact of the matter is, the review in this thread is saying things that people have been saying since closed beta. And that's the truth. If I were to write a review of Aion, right now, it would be damn close to what I read there, although a bit more in depth in that I played longer than the reviewer apparently did.

Wizardry · October 2009

Well as much as the AION fanbois don't like it,it is pretty much how i saw the game,only i would have gone into more detail about it's failures.IMO any site that gives this game an 8 or higher,knows very little about game design.

You have to REMOVE your fanbois attitude and look at and entire makeup of a game,could each area have been done better,did they do each aspect of the game well enough,it all has to be subjective thinking.There is not one aspect of AION well no game for that matter than garners a 9 score.So to see sites giving it a 9+ over all is a laughing joke.

A 9 is near perfection only subtle details could be improved upon,is there actually anything in AION that is near perfection?People cannot be honest,there is just too much biased.

This game has a linear design,a linear race design,a linear leveling design,a linear starting path for the game,very boring linear quests,where is the creativity?

It has flying but as mentioned many times,instead of a properly designed game,they just limit flying or remove it's funsction totally.A half ass developer should have been able to implement it,or what they forgot how to fly all of a sudden?

They failed on water physics,there is almost no content outside of the normal realm of quest and level grinding.They totally copied the L2 PVP castle seige ,,tower seige same thing new channel.The performance issues are no secret,the fact is that the game is not as intensive graphically as people have been claiming.The game does have an artsy look,but that is to each their own,i cannot say it is either great or bad,however fanbois will of course say it's the best of any game alive,the biased thing again.

You look at some of that artsy look in some of the mobs they put int he game,some are non interactive you cannot harm them and they will not harm you,that is very unrealistic,you have these so called gods in the game,and they have zero interaction with game mobs?

Character customization again totally throws this storyline right out the window.You can't have a distinctive race and yet totally customize your players so it looks like 500 different races.They are either Asmos or ELyos not some midget looking freak or some fashion model from hollywood,it makes a mockery of the story.

Over all Aion does nothing amazing in it's design,unless someone can point me to something they consider amazing the game can never achieve more than an 7.5-8 in any category.An overall score realistically could never be more than a 7.

gotha · October 2009

Early on the Aion combat for me was funner then warhammer. All other aspects of the game subpar though.

Illyssia · October 2009

Originally posted by Wizardry

Over all Aion does nothing amazing in it's design,unless someone can point me to something they consider amazing the game can never achieve more than an 7.5-8 in any category.An overall score realistically could never be more than a 7.

I think an objective review depends on how much you like grinding in an mmo, if you hate it then you of course score Aion lower, if you actually enjoy it in gaming then you score a little higher. I would give Aion a 7 out of 10 having played it, it is not bad. However, I quit the game because I felt it did not offer anything particularly new for me as a gaming experience and I certainly did not feel like levelling another character up. I honestly think that in a few months time the perspective on the game will be a similar one to WAR now: a massively hyped launch, most official reviewers overrate the game, but the grind and other issues with the game (such as mass bots) are just not to the taste of the NA/Euro player who mostly quit it and leave it to the Asian market.

Yamota · October 2009

Originally posted by Wizardry

Well as much as the AION fanbois don't like it,it is pretty much how i saw the game,only i would have gone into more detail about it's failures.IMO any site that gives this game an 8 or higher,knows very little about game design.
You have to REMOVE your fanbois attitude and look at and entire makeup of a game,could each area have been done better,did they do each aspect of the game well enough,it all has to be subjective thinking.There is not one aspect of AION well no game for that matter than garners a 9 score.So to see sites giving it a 9+ over all is a laughing joke.
A 9 is near perfection only subtle details could be improved upon,is there actually anything in AION that is near perfection?People cannot be honest,there is just too much biased.
This game has a linear design,a linear race design,a linear leveling design,a linear starting path for the game,very boring linear quests,where is the creativity?
It has flying but as mentioned many times,instead of a properly designed game,they just limit flying or remove it's funsction totally.A half ass developer should have been able to implement it,or what they forgot how to fly all of a sudden?
They failed on water physics,there is almost no content outside of the normal realm of quest and level grinding.They totally copied the L2 PVP castle seige ,,tower seige same thing new channel.The performance issues are no secret,the fact is that the game is not as intensive graphically as people have been claiming.The game does have an artsy look,but that is to each their own,i cannot say it is either great or bad,however fanbois will of course say it's the best of any game alive,the biased thing again.
You look at some of that artsy look in some of the mobs they put int he game,some are non interactive you cannot harm them and they will not harm you,that is very unrealistic,you have these so called gods in the game,and they have zero interaction with game mobs?
Character customization again totally throws this storyline right out the window.You can't have a distinctive race and yet totally customize your players so it looks like 500 different races.They are either Asmos or ELyos not some midget looking freak or some fashion model from hollywood,it makes a mockery of the story.
Over all Aion does nothing amazing in it's design,unless someone can point me to something they consider amazing the game can never achieve more than an 7.5-8 in any category.An overall score realistically could never be more than a 7.

I think you are a bit too negative about the game. Yes it has very few innovative features but WoW was the same when it was released.

Unfourtantely you dont need to be innovative to attract a huge subscriber base and I see Aion as an example of that.

Reason is that the game has very nice gfx that scale well with computers, lots of PvE content, lots of PvP content and highly cusomizable looks. And it is not the bit unrealistic that you have people looking like fashion models and midgets. That is how it is in RL aswell. If anything it is unrealistic to have different characters of the same race with the same weight, height, skintone etc.

All the other negative points you have, like non-interactive mobs, linear design/quests etc is the same for games like LotR and WoW. And compared to other new games, like Champions Online and Fallen Earth, Aion is alot more solid, bug free and has tons of more content.

The only weak point that I can see is that there are only two races and that the classes on both sides are virtually identical which doesnt leave much for variation. But I guess they did that to not have balancing issues. A cop out, I know.

But I do agree that it is strange if this game would get more than 8, since it has basically nothing new, but what it has it does well and that warrants an 8 in my book. WAR as a comparison was a mess at launch with broken endgame and massive balancing issues.

Sovrath · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

Gee, the guys with the winged ballerina sigs disagree. Go figure. LOL.
Oh, and btw, based on your own link @ gamerankings.com;
Warhammer Online - 85.37%
Aion - 81.54%
So I guess it would be fair to say that all reviews are unbiased and fair, right? Based on reviews, is WAR a better game?
Spin away, my little fanboys, spin away.

er, can't one say the same about the guy with the Anime sucks avatar?

That could very well bleed over into "eastern influenced media sucks". Just sayin'.

mmaize · October 2009

Originally posted by Eben

Originally posted by mmaize

There's no need to spin anything. Using the same reviews WoW got a 90+ and even AoC got an 80+ and in each of those I can find an extremely low review and extremely high ones. So the question is, what does that tell you?
What it tells me is that your not going to take one review whether its the best review ever or the worst and make it "THE" accurate review about the game because just like with your own opinions the review is done in the eyes of the reviewer more often then not because things such as "fun" is relative. Express your personal opinion all you want to as there are a few million that have their own opinions now as to which is accurate? Either we let each player figure that out for themselves or we go by whatever the industry standard is which in this case seems to be an average of all. So there's no need for me to spin anything being that the vast majority of reviews for Aion are positive. Warhammer Online wasn't a horrible game, it was a game with great potential that had major flaws which doesn't fly in a player base as unforgiving as we are today. In the MMO market there really aren't any second chances in the eyes of the vast majority and if NCSoft has learned anything they will take advantage of the huge interest and success this game has had in its early stages and work their butts off to keep it.

No, what it tells me is that all the online reviews, this site included, are bullshit. It's hard to be objective with a review, when you are getting paid to display ads for the item being reviewed. It's counterproductive.

Would you expect to walk into a Toyota dealership and have the salesman tell you the car you're looking at, the car in the posters all over the walls, with all the commercials on TV, would you expect him to tell you straight-up that it was a piece of shit? Simple fact of the matter is, the review in this thread is saying things that people have been saying since closed beta. And that's the truth. If I were to write a review of Aion, right now, it would be damn close to what I read there, although a bit more in depth in that I played longer than the reviewer apparently did.

Really? Analogies because I need you to explain the very same thing I already explained? Secondly, I love how your initial statement says that online reviews including this sites are bullshit but yet your initial reply explained how the review that was linked is "Accurate." So you are basically making my case again which is that you believe one review to be the "truth" because it falls in line with your personal experience in the game and yet somehow you can't discount with anything else solid aside from calling the few million or so subscribed to the game, fanbois?

Riiiiight.

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