By
Cody “Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor
The greatest success stories of human history often arose from humble
beginnings. The retail giant known as Wal-Mart first found its home in
Bentonville, Arkansas, a small town of several thousand. Albert
Einstein initially did not earn high enough grades to get into
post-secondary school. And the company known as Acclaim Entertainment
filed for bankruptcy in September 2004.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31741">
src="/image/view/31741/preview" width="200">
2Moons wants you to
enter the Maze of Newbies.
As most of us know, Wal-Mart quickly reached outside of Bentonville to
the broader reaches of the globe, and Albert Einstein was one of the
world’s greatest minds. But many people may not suspect that
once
defunct Acclaim Entertainment has emerged from its own ashes. Purchased
by former Activision CEO Howard Marks, Acclaim Entertainment was
renamed Acclaim Games and is now one of the primary sources for quality
free to play games in North America. With Acclaim Game Cards now
available major retail stores like Target, the company is set to take
the free to play market by storm.
After getting their feet planted firmly underneath them, Acclaim set
out to rock the MMOG market place by releasing one of the few games to
be oriented for a mature audience. Although the company had a few set
backs with their initial script and localization for the game,
style="font-style: italic;">2Moons was released
with the full support of Acclaim
Games and is already pulling in a fair amount of attention for the
company.
Being the ever interested gamer, I knew that I should eventually give
the game a try. However, other assignments always found a way to
interrupt my 2Moons
gaming time, and I found that I had yet to even
install the game. Eventually I steeled my determination and simply made
time for 2Moons.
Honestly, I’m glad I did.
Installation and
Character Creation
With my resolve firmly set, I fired up my Internet browser and
navigated to the 2Moons
official website using our handy game overview
page. Once there, I immediately found the giant “Download
Now!” button and began the installation process. Unlike some
imported MMOGs, 2Moons
has an incredibly easy download and installation
process. Using their own proprietary downloader, Acclaim downloads the
entire game for the user and fires up the installation screen once the
download has completed.
Since I already had an account registered with Acclaim, I immediately
jumped into the world of 2Moons
to see what type of character I could
create. Ultimately, the character creation screen was disappointing.
2Moons
falls into the same character creation problem that hampers
almost every imported MMOG; there’s a severe lack of options
when
choosing your character. While I don’t need to have every
brow
tweaked nor bicep flexed, I do enjoy having a bit of flexibility in
making my character look appropriate.
Instead, 2Moons
gives you six options, which is basically the six
classes you can choose from. You can’t even determine your
own
gender, and the choice is governed solely by your class. Gritting my
teeth, I found myself selecting a Incar Magician as my main character,
which happened to be a girl. As I type this, I can feel my man parts
shriveling away into nothingness. How emasculating.
Initial Gameplay
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31740">
src="/image/view/31740/preview" width="200">
Character creation
only allows you to choose from six different races/classes.
Once your character has been created and named, you’re given
two
options for your starting area: Loa Castle or Braiken Castle. I
selected Loa Castle, which has a decorative theme that sings of
historical Asia. According to the 2Moons
Quick Start Guide on the
game’s official website, there’s really no
difference
between the two zones, and Loa Castle just called to me.
The world of 2Moons
is a harsh place, and you’ll be faced
with
that fact almost as soon as you step into the world. One of the guards
that stands close to the resurrection portal has the game’s
first
quest, and he greets you with a surly “Welcome to
Hell!”
Glad to see you too. Being the MMO veteran, I took the first quest I
saw and immediately went to work tearing through the first few
introductory quests.
While I’m no stranger to MMOGs, I would have to worry about
players that begin the game anew. Although tutorials are spread
throughout the world, there’s nothing that immediately glares
at
them if they don’t read a particular manual. Even I had a bit
of
trouble early on. Since 2Moons doesn’t allow for key bindings
to
be altered by the player, I initially couldn’t figure out
which
button to press to remove character names (V) and the method to hid the
UI is still a mystery to me.
Every other portion of the initial UI is pretty standard fare for most
MMO gamers. Characters can move using WASD or point-and-click, and
skills are used by hitting the number keys. Auto-attack can be turned
on automatically, or you can use your mouse to initiate an attack by
double clicking on a monster.
For the most part, the first few levels fly by extremely fast,
especially if you leave the in-game advertisements switched to the
“On” setting. If you’ll notice in most of
my
screenshots and/or video, there are emblazoned
“Acclaim”
stickers in the right hand corner of my display. Since I usually run my
games at 1280x1024 pixels, I really had no trouble seeing around it,
and the advertisements actually allow you to earn an extra 10%
experience bonus as you progress! It’s a fairly fantastic
feature, especially for those of us who don’t mind a little
advertisement cluttering up our gaming space. Within the first two
hours of gamplay, I had already reached level 11 and was deadest on
hitting level 12 thanks to the extra 10% bonus.
That said, I spent almost every moment I was in 2Moons hunting
monsters. With the initial quests (which weren’t incredibly
intuitive) telling me to go kill X monsters to earn my reward, I simply
ran back and worth between killing monsters and completing quests.
border="1">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31738">
src="/image/view/31738/preview" width="200">
I hope to reach a
high enough level where I begin to look like these two warriors.
Thankfully, killing monsters isn’t incredibly difficult in
2Moons, especially in the first few levels. Like all the games of
yesteryear, executing a mob is as simple as spamming your first three
number keys on your keypad. As a magic user, I didn’t even
allow
the monsters to get within melee range before I destroyed their souls.
However, spamming the keys isn’t a relaxing process, as most
of
the cool down timers in the game seem to be between .5 and 3 seconds a
piece. That’s a lot of spamming.
Even after two hours, I really wasn’t tired of playing.
Compared
to most free to play MMOGs, 2Moons is pretty, especially with the
settings cranked to the max. The game doesn’t really compare
to
most modern MMOGs like the Dx10 version of
style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Rings Online
or
Age of Conan,
but 2Moons
certainly isn’t looking shabby
either.
The style is similar to what you’d see in
style="font-style: italic;">Guild Wars, and
2Moons
may even outshine its American kin.
Unfortunately, my first impressions review of
style="font-style: italic;">2Moons is just
that, a
first impression. In the end I had very little time to attempt any sort
of player versus player combat, and any of the hobby skills were left
unexplored. Yet to me, 2Moons
seems to have its focus securely aimed at
combat, and thus far its done that portion of the game fairly well.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be spending even more
time
in 2Moons,
trying out the PvP system, getting into the higher levels,
and basically taking a stroll through the entirety of the game.
If anyone is interested in playing with me, simply respond to this
article in the comments section or send me a private message. See you
in game!
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Dekaron Game Page.
