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Lineage 2 Review: Should You Buy?

Lineage 2 Coverart

Lineage 2 Review: Should You Buy?

Released for Microsoft Windows Lineage 2 is a huge multiplayer online role-playing game. It is the second game in the Lineage series and a prequel to Lineage. This game was both developed and published by NCSoft in 2003. Being that it is the second in the series, players know the drill. Pick a class such as an elf, dwarf or orc and decide whether the character should cast spells or wield a sword. Players will spend most of their time running into combat and running away from it.

Lineage 2 is Heavy on the Combat

Characters in Lineage 2
Characters within Lineage 2.

Once a particular task is accepted the player will journey out into the online universe where players will be confronted by various monsters and other predictable situations. When combat takes its toll players can take it easy and regenerate their health. Gamers won’t find many interesting quests at the beginning of the game. Many of the non-playable characters are nothing but dead ends as they will inform the character that they’re not ready for a specific request. Often characters find themselves collecting items and killing enemies over and over again in an attempt to earn money and points to level-up.

Faulty Gameplay

Lineage 2 elf wielding sword
Lineage 2 elf wielding sword.

The weapons, outfits and other equipment is expensive. It seems like such an overwhelming task. It’s like trying to purchase a Mercedes on a McDonald’s salary. This is a big fault of the game. It doesn’t seem to give much incentive to continue. Even at the 12th level it may be found that characters are virtually indistinguishable from other characters in and around the same level. There’s really nothing compelling about the gameplay.

Pathfinding is slightly flawed. Although players can point and click to where they want to go there are just too many obstacles in the character’s path for him or her to navigate properly. Players will have to take baby steps. It may take a dozen points of A and B to get from A to B.

Impressive Graphics in Lineage 2

One can’t help but be impressed with the graphics of the various environments. Whether it’s a city, village or forest, the graphics are richly detailed and realistic looking. At least as realistic as a fantasy-based game is expected to look. The particle effects of the magic spells are mesmerizing. They dance, shimmer and swirl to let players know that something important is happening. Gamers will also see other animated displays when the character or an enemy takes a hit, something that some RPGs tend to overlook.

An interesting feature highlights, in red, any character that has killed another. It marks him or her for imminent death since other characters can now kill him or her with no penalty. The only way players can shake the red is to die over and over. Players that only hit other players will be flagged as purple. This takes the guesswork out of judging some characters’ personalities and motives.

Final Words

Songs are repetitive and tend to force players out of certain areas through the sheer repetitiveness. Theme music and sound effects are too obviously triggered by character’s movement and location and don’t feel as though they occur naturally in the fantasy world. The online community is not very populated and the promised siege campaign is developing very slowly. Lineage 2 still beats sitting around watching Big Brother 5 – or whatever the number it’s on now – but just barely.

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