This is my second MMO
review. It's also my second free-to-play review. Coming straight out of
Russia, Allods online is a fantasy MMO that is also free-to-play. What
really makes Allods online stand out, however, is the fact that this is
almost uncannily like World of Warcraft, Blizzard's own blockbuster
fantasy MMO. Regardless I was interested when I heard this comes from
Nival interactive, the same company that has brought us the recent
Heroes of Might and Magic games.
Allods opens with an impressive login screen and sweeping music to match; too bad it only goes downhill from here
Allods,
a name which I never get tired of spelling or saying aloud, is as
cookie cutter as it gets. This is WoW by any other name, and although
there are indeed a couple unique elements thrown in, absolutely
EVERYTHING else - from the art style, to the interface, to the
primordial structure of the entire game - is lifted from its successful
competitor. If you don't know much about World of Warcraft, I'll distill
it to the most basic elements. You create a fantasy character with a
fantasy profession. You start in a specific area of a fantasy map, where
you proceed to grab many fantasy jobs ("quests") from people and kill
10 rats, then 10 boars, then 10 spiders, then 10 bandits, etc. This
basic get a quest/do X things structure is, as far as I can tell, the
game. I played Allods Online for four hours, starting with both
factions, and my review is based on early game content - both sides had
confusing tutorials and starter areas which I explored.
To Allods' credit, it has some kind of a peaked helmet; the most badass thing I have ever seen in a fantasy MMO to date
So
to keep this review brief, this is basically WoW... with a twist! Most
names, and many voices, are Russian. While some of the voiced dialog in
the game is English (pretty bad English, mind you), the other half is
straight up in Russian. Still, don't think this really makes it any more
unique; just weird. You've got Humans (two factions of them!), Elves,
Orcs, Undead (who resemble cyborgs, which is pretty cool I guess), etc.
There are also some stranger derivations, like Gibberlings instead of
Gnomes, but in terms of theme and style they are basically
interchangeable as the short race of the game. The combat mechanics are
essentially the same, and the leveling system is very similar - talent
trees and all. The only really, truly unique thing about Allods is that
each race has unique classes - insofar as they are variations of a
basic, shared class. So, the human paladin of the "League" is not only
called something else, but is slightly different from the human paladin
on the "Empire" side.
Note the uniform starting equipment; indeed, there is an entire Soviet-inspired "Empire" faction in Allods
These minor differences in classes, races, and even languages aren't enough to shake this immutable fact; this game is a lot like World of Warcraft.
The art style is probably the biggest offender here, and Allods clearly
tries hard to look like it was released in 2004. The layout of towns,
adjacent zones, and even the use of mounts are all heavily inspired
from everybody's favorite fantasy MMO. The music is all over the place,
with a couple decent tracks (more reminiscent of Blizzard's own
orchestral overhauls) and a lot of basic synth-stuff that sounds like
vanilla WoW did back in the day. The only other major difference worth
mentioning is that, because it's a free-to-play game, it also includes
an in-game item store that allows for paid boosts, items, etc. to make
playing the game less painful. This is done by some kind of gPotato cash
that is transferred from real money or something, and exchanged across
multiple games. Needless to say, I did not get any of the paid content
in this game.
I just don't know what else to say, other than Играйте Мир военного Судна!
Allods
is a free game, and it certainly seems to have attracted enough players
for a couple (I think 2) well populated servers in North America. This
means I can't really rate it the same as World of Warcraft, can I? It
can't be compared, one might say, because one costs money and the other
doesn't. I argue that both games cost something more valuable than
measly cash, and that's your free time. How you spend your
gaming time should be more important than a minor monthly fee, and from
this perspective, Blizzard obviously presents the higher-quality
product. Because it's free, though, Allods might be worth a spin just so
you yourself can witness the bizarro-World of Warcraft and make a
judgement based on experience. As a long-term MMO to sink hundreds of
hours into, however, I would start looking elsewhere.
