Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

According to the developers, the Isle of Souls was originally sealed away from the rest of the Lineage II world because of the hatred aimed at the Kamael by the other races. The Kamael were originally created by the giants to battle the gods, but when the giants lost that war they sealed off the Isle of Souls to protect their creation. It’s unknown in the current lore how the Isle of Souls was reopened, but the Kamael are now out and about in the L2 landscape.

The Crystal Caverns are an extremely intense zone to play in.

Just as I was getting my feet under me with this new character, killing little creatures with single swings of my sword, the developers pulled us to a halt. For the next bit of the tour, we were going to jump into some very high level characters and really get a feel for some of the new instanced dungeons in the game world. While some of the several new areas have been introduced in this new expansion – including the 79-80+ playground called Hellbound – our party went adventuring into the Crystal Caverns which is located in the Isle of Prayer.

When it comes to in-game graphics, the developers at NCsoft have certainly honed their talents when it comes to creating graphics in the L2 world. Set in an underwater area, the Crystal Caverns were an incredibly beautiful instance, with sea plants splayed over many of the architectural designs that were displayed throughout the instance. Fish swam in the water (sealed off by gigantic glass domes) over our heads. Each of the monsters in this zone was designed to look both menacing and aquatic, and the developers succeeded with flying colors.

Changing into the Kamael Final Form.

As one of the highest level instances in the game, Crystal Caverns was certainly a challenge for our party. The initial foray met with some incredibly heavy resistance, and if it wasn’t for the protection of our GM liaison, we would have player wiped several times over. Though our party did have some experienced L2 players in it, we were not without our fair share of newbies (myself included) so it was often a struggle to get past certain areas. The combat was fast and furious, and I certainly had to make up my fair share of the party damage or death was quickly upon us.

The race of the Kamael are aptly proficient in their various combat areas. While the male Kamael are incredible swordsmen (our tour guides were constantly asking where the male Kamael was so he could tank), the female of the race are equally as proficient in their skill with the crossbow. What isn’t expressly stated in the numerous previews of the Kamael expansion is the fact that the Kamael require souls to power most of their higher level abilities.

Initially, I found that I simply didn’t generate enough souls to use many of my powers. The creatures that we were fighting were massive monsters that required a little bit of time to kill, so by the time I had generated a decent number of souls, we had already plowed through several encounters. Eventually, I discovered an ability that allowed me to create souls using my own health, which players who would progress normally would probably know about. However, even with that ability it was often difficult to find exactly how many souls I had in reserve. Without that number, it was often difficult to plan my attacks and I’d suddenly be without souls in the middle of a fight. It’s not a

A close-up of the female Kamael's Final Form. Those tattoos on her body actually move.

big issues, and I’m sure the developers at NCsoft have already addressed the issue or made the counter more visible to the common gamer.

The final part of our tour was quickly upon us, and the developers put us in a room where we could simply try out the various abilities and transformations that were on our new high level characters. It was fun watching our entire group juggle between the various transformations, from the unicorn, to the yeti, to the bison, to the four-winged angel, to the scary dog-like creature. The best transformation of them all, however, was the Kamael’s Final Form.

This one shot transformation (the recharge timer is incredibly long) requires the Kamael character to generate a high number of souls but then shifts the character into a ass-whopping, death-dealing, winged machine of doom. If you haven’t watched our Kamel gameplay video, you need to check it out. These screenshots just don’t do it justice.

With the end of our day clearly in sight, I made a note to myself to immediately re-install Lineage II on to my computer and give the game a full review. If the amount of fun I had at the press day is replicated during my review of the game, the scores should be tremendous.

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