Online RPGs are split down into two categories; Everquest and Not Everquest.

I once read that in a magazine and although it’s becoming less relevant by the day, it is understandable. Everquest has been the dominant online RPG for four years now and although it’s showing its age, many still play it daily. With consoles going online, it was inevitable that MMORPGs would make the jump onto PS2 and Xbox (oh, and GC). Everquest Online Adventures is an online-only title, taking advantage of Sony’s PS2 Network Play. A successful transition from PC or a waste of time? Read on and you’ll find out…

Everquest Online Adventures thinks it’s a PC game. Loading up the game, you have to agree to a hefty notice and log in with a username and password. Once you’ve entered all the relevant info, you’re confronted with endless ‘loading..’ and ‘connecting…’ screens before you can get into the action. You can’t help thinking, “Oh just get on with it!” every time it announces that it’s ‘authenticating the DNAS’, whatever that is. There’s even a product key, just like the one PC games have, except with console games there really is no reason to incorporate that amount of security. All of Xbox Live’s games manage without logins and product keys, so why can’t Everquest? Consoles are meant to be more user-friendly than PCs, not emulate them.

Once you’re logged on, you’re prompted to create your character from a selection of races, classes and sexes. Different combinations have different attributes and advantages, allowing you to create a personalised character that reflects your playing style. After you’ve perfected your alter ego’s appearance, you name them (manually or with the useful random name generator) and move out into the game world. Here you’re greeted by various non-player-characters (NPCs) who instruct you on the controls and countless other aspects of the game. Thrown into the world of Everquest, you’re not sure what’s going on or what to do. Where do you go? Who is a friend and who is an enemy? This is one of the hardest aspects of RPG design; trying to ease the player into the game world and explain all of their questions. Sadly, Everquest Online Adventures fails to explain fully the game mechanics to the player, leaving them in a daunting situation.

The first thing you will notice is the graphics. Ouch. The character models are detailed and well textured, but the game environment is horribly bland, with weak textures and widespread repetition of landscape features. It’s like playing Soldier of Fortune II on Xbox all over again. It would be far better to have a beautiful game world with boring characters than the other way round. Gothic II on PC is a perfect example; it is actually worth travelling out to watch the sunset and admire the scenery, it’s that good. Everquest has some nice graphical effects, with individual clumps of flowers hiding the relatively flat ground and shafts of light piercing forest canopies, but it’s mostly too little, too late. The game isn’t visually poor, it’s just too average to be good.

Everquest Online Adventures’s gameplay is like almost every other MMORPG’s; exploring forgotten lands, trading precious goods, fighting monsters and villains, socialising with other players, casting spells, taking up quests and developing your alter ego into a virtual super-warrior. Admittedly, the game exactly a ‘pick-up-and-play’ title, but once you’ve farmiliarised yourself with the various gameplay elements, you’ll be off fighting the forces of evil (or good) in distant lands. That is, if you can find them. You see, there has no in-game map whatsoever, just a compass. Everquest’s environment is huge, allowing for thousands of players, so why is their no map? Apparently one comes with the game, but we received no manual so cannot verify this. Even if there is a paper diagram of the game world, it doesn’t excuse the lack of an in-game one. Morrowind had both, and that worked perfectly. Developers should really learn from their competitors.

Everquest has been heavily adapted for its PS2 debut and it shows. The control scheme, while not brilliant, incorporates a clever menu system that allows you to quickly select a wide range of chat, group and other commands. You can chat freely with players using an on-screen keyboard by clicking R3, but this proves a bit too slow for most conversation. Unfortunately there’s no voice support, but you can plug in pretty much any USB keyboard to chat with. Players can also group together and then chat, fight and take up together. The co-operative play element definitely adds to the game’s lifespan and makes it far more enjoyable to play. Another notable feature is the game’s mail system, which allows you to send messages to friends even if they’re not online, just like email. If you get stuck, you can message Central Station from within the game and they’ll usually get back to you within a few hours. It seems that the developers have realised that communication and ease of use are key, and their solutions to many of the problems that face online games are relatively sound.

From chatting with fellow players in the game and first-hand experience, I get the impression that there’s quite a few features which could have been done better. The battle system should have been more involving, instead of just pressing ‘X’ and then letting your alter ego do the fighting for you. The audio is also fairly average, with a decent score but bland sound effects. When you first buy the game, you get a 30 day free trial, and then after that you must pay a subscription of around $100/£60 a year. To be honest, I don’t think many people will continue playing after the free trial period, as the lifespan isn’t that long. One of the most frequent comments from players in the game was that there wasn’t enough to do, and that games like Morrowind had far more. Hardcore RPG fans will love every minute, but for the casual gamer, it just gets a bit boring after a while.

So is it a successful transition from PC or a waste of time? Well it’s a bit of both. Everquest Online Adventures looks like and has some of the traits of a 1999 PC game, but the gameplay is still as good as four years ago. The PS2 optimizations are fairly sound and the lifespan is reasonable, but in the end, it doesn’t feel as fresh or as exciting as it should. If you’re a PS2 RPG fan and can’t wait to get online, then head straight for the shop. Otherwise, I’d strongly recommend a rental first.