In my first
impressions of YNK's
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/906">
style="font-style: italic;">Rohan: Blood Feud,
I told Ten Ton Hammer readers that Rohan
sports quality graphics, great music and some unique features. I've had
Rohan in my
Top Ten
Free-to-Play Games pretty much since I was in the beta back
in June 2008. As my character's levels started to climb, my
relationship with Rohan
has turned into something more like
href="http://www.davidandmaddie.com/" target="_blank">David
and Maddie from Moonlighting:
there's a genuine spark, but maybe we're simply not right for each
other.
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Rohan
style="font-style: italic;"> has some cool features that
open up as you progess, including Township battles.
style="font-style: italic;">
Once Upon a
Time...
The
early levels (say, until 25 or so) feature a world rife with more
political intrigue than the British royal family, interesting quests,
and a solid tutorial. The beginning exopsition does a good job of
fleshing out the differences between the races, and it helps the player
get a sense of the scope of the events happening all around the
starting area. Then
href="http://pics.livejournal.com/jaegamer/pic/0002kp4q/s320x240"
target="_blank">rocks fall, and the plot dies. Ok,
not quite
so tragically, but the story does taper off as players are funneled
toward PvP and Township battles (think of the RvR maps in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/war">
style="font-style: italic;">Warhammer Online).
Rohan's
tutorial does an outstanding job of briefly revealing all of the depth
to the game much along the lines of
href="http://www.positivepath.net/ideasCJ9.asp">the "onion
principle." The tutorial lets you know at once that
style="font-style: italic;">Rohan is deeper
than most F2P offerings, but it doesn't
overwhelm you by trying to teach you every intricate detail at once.
It's just the right touch to make you want to keep playing and test out
each
the gameplay systems thoroughly.
Opening quests vary from the normal kill and fetch quests to
early
dungeons. The variety and pacing seems just about right to keep players
from getting bored. The dialog is translated well, so you won't need to
wear your
target="_blank">All Your Base t-shirt to get in
the mood to play the game.
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style="font-style: italic;">The water in Rohan
style="font-style: italic;"> shows off the powerful graphics.
Feed Me, Seymour!
Just as Audrey II, the man-eating plant in
style="font-style: italic;">Little Shop of Horrors,
had
target="_blank">an insatiable desire for fresh blood,
Rohan
will eat your memory. That is not to say the game is unstable or even
that it performs poorly. The game pushes high-quality graphics and
numerous lighting effects, and it will gladly use everything your
graphics card can give, and it'll borrow your RAM, too. If you have
only the 512MB RAM specified as the minimum requirement, you'll be
disappointed. Have at least 2GB and it will perform like a race car
most of the time.
You Sure Got a
Pretty Mouth
The graphics in Rohan
are one of its strongest traits. Landscapes look very nice, especially
when viewed from a distance. Up closer, some of the textures look
rushed, and a few polygons need some smoothing. The worst part of the
robust graphics may be
the sparse vegetation. The UI is clean and simple, and the mini-map is
useful. In general, Rohan
just copies the
standard layout since it works well enough. Character models seem
accurately proportioned, and the move better than the marionettes we
often find in other games. Put simply, if you were looking to score at
a bar, you'd definitely chat up Rohan
and leave other F2P games to your win man.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Rohan: Blood Feud Game Page.
