TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

by Cody “Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor

Violence has always been a part of human nature. From the gladiatorial combat in Ancient Rome to the bloody massacres seen on modern television, the viewing of violence as entertainment has never changed. According to a report published by the American Psychological Association in 2004, U.S. children are “seeing as many as 8,000 murders by the time he or she finishes elementary school at age 11”, and the number only continues to rise as the child matures into adulthood. 

Requiem certainly doesn't shy away from over-the-top, blood, gore or sexuality.

So it comes as no surprise that many massively multiplayer online game developers have opted to visit the mature market, a place where those children (now as adults) can interact inside a dark and gritty world full of violence, horror, and bloodshed. Strangely one of the first developers to approach this grisly new medium is Gravity Interactive, a studio best known for creating the wildly popular children’s MMOG, Ragnarok Online. Their entry into the marketplace is titled Requiem: Bloodymare, and the developers have pulled out all the stops to insure that this game is as nightmarishly brutal as possible.

With the game now in closed beta and free for the press to preview, I sat down with the title and pounded my way through the initial play experience for Requiem: Bloodymare. It was a harrowing, gruesome, and horrific trial, but I came away with all of my limbs intact and my head still firmly attached to my shoulders.

From the outset of the game, it’s incredibly apparent that this isn’t your standard “Teen” rated MMORPG. The dark color palette blends well with the moody, minor keyed music, and the throbbing baseline of the entire mix seems to breathe a bit of freshness into the game even as you start in on creating your character.

Players that enter Requiem for the first time will have three different races to choose from: the Turan, Bartuk, and Kruxena. Each of the three races has their own particular strengths and weaknesses, but each also comes with its own unique set of classes. The Turan are your standard human-type race with a balanced load of attributes over the entirety of their character. Choosing a Bartuk character, you’ll essentially be putting yourself in the shoes of a massive pile of muscle that’s waiting to rip out your throat with his or her bare hands. Finally, you can pick the magically talented and graceful Kruxena.

Once you’ve decided on your race, there are a few options for faces and hair style / color, but generally speaking Requiem still falls into the common trap laid by so many imported MMOGs before it. This lack of character customization, however, doesn’t feel like an extremely huge hurdle to jump over.

However, Requiem doesn’t force players to make a class decision right out of the gate. In fact, initial class decisions don’t come into play until you’ve been playing in the world for at least a few hours. Until you reach level 10, you’ll simply be known as a Bartuk Temperion or a Turan Temperion, and that’s it. The character creation system in Requiem is built on a quick entry into the game world, and that’s exactly what occurs. Once you’ve gotten your race and character customization options selected, your immediately plunged into a deep, dark, and desolate dungeon where you’re instructed to fight your way out.

With a weapon already strapped onto my back and my instructions firmly in place, I walked through the dark hallways of my introductory dungeon and attempted to find my way to the surface. New players to the MMORPG genre don’t need to fret, however, as there are a number of tutorial boxes that do a fair job of explaining the movement and combat functionalities of Requiem. All of the controls are listed in these tutorials, and Gravity really went out of their way to insure that Requiem users were able to navigate around the initial dungeon and didn’t feel put upon to try to figure the game out on the fly.

Every monster in Requiem has a different death animation.

That said, even MMO veterans should be happy with Requiem as the game is probably the best example of thorough localization to ever hit the North American shoreline. Rather than force players to stick with the standard point-and-click format that’s so familiar to the Asian audience, Gravity has actually created the game to have WASD movement mechanics. And for those players that are still used to the point-and-click movement, that functionality is still included in the game as well. You can run, jump, and navigate with either the mouse or the keyboard, and most MMO gamers will feel comfortable with the control scheme.

The only problem that occurred while I was playing occurred with the combination of point-and-click and WASD movement. The easiest way to auto-attack monsters in Requiem is by right-clicking on them. However, this also moves your character, so if you’re not careful you can find yourself in a sticky situation rather quickly. But I only had this problem a few times before I discovered the issue and turned off mouse movement.

Thankfully, the movement options weren’t the only portion of the game that Gravity localized. All of the text that players will be able to read in the game has also been translated fairly well, and even though there are still a few niggling things here and there (weapons are described as “basic armor”), it’s a monumental improvement over a number of other imported games that are on the market.

As I tore my way through the starter monsters in the initial dungeon, I watched with a sort of morbid glee as the monsters I killed flew apart in a variety of death animations. By using the Havok engine (the same engine was used in Half-Life 2), the developers of Requiem were able to create some incredibly vivid and visceral ragdoll physics to accompany all of the deaths of their monsters.