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

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.

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, 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

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.

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 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 Guild Wars, and 2Moons may even outshine its American kin.

Unfortunately, my first impressions review of 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!