Sword of the New World Review - Page Four

As you can tell from the screenshots I’ve included
with this review, Sword’s character and structural art is
fantastic. Instead of merely creating an open-area for characters to
explore and interact with NPCs, Hak Kyu Kim and his team created an
entire world – one that is almost exclusively discovered
through your eyes. Even without the dialogue in the game (which is
adequate), Sword of the
New World’s story can be seen through
your computer screen in the monolithic cathedrals, expansive vistas,
and clear-cut forests. While the graphics aren’t as complex
or revolutionary as anything with the Unreal Engine 3 might be,
it’s still completely tremendous to see a world come alive
before your eyes.

Is it truly a New World?

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/10339"
title="The man with the purple dialogue text"> src="/image/view/10339/preview"
width="200">

The quest design in
Sword of the New World would benefit from a bit more work.

Even with an expansive and visually captivating world, a new
character control system, and a host of intricate options to choose
from, Sword of the New
World still holds true to some of the pitfalls
that imported games are notorious for having. Although the character
customization had a bevy of new costumes to choose from compared to
when I played it during beta, the process still lacked in the
sophistication of what can be found in games like City of Heroes or
Star Wars Galaxies.

Though the multi-character control system is a terrific
evolutionary step in the growth of MMOGs, the combat and questing
system in Sword has some significant hurdles for Western players to get
over. In general, the combat is very auto-attack oriented in its style;
you can choose to do very little actual hotkey work if you choose to.
Even with this, the grind in the game is obviously still included, even
though K2 has improved it significantly from what it was. Questing is
also quite laborious compared to contemporary styles in North American
games like World of
Warcraft. Quest directions are pretty sparse, and
even in some of the earlier quests I found myself completely clueless
on what to do next.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/10334"
title="Killing a demon"> src="/image/view/10334/preview"
width="200">

Even with some
reservations, Sword is possibly the best imported MMOG to arrive in
America in a long time.

Despite these qualms, Sword
of the New World certainly makes
up for any problems it may have by allowing players to try out the game
for free, until level 20. Although there is a retail version of the
game, K2 Network allows gamers to download the game for free and play
until level 20 before they make them pay a subscription fee.
Inidividuals who purchase the retail version of the game get to level
as high as they want in the initial thirty days after the purchase the
game, and they're given a special UPC that they can unlock with a code
that's located inside their boxed copy. Depending upon where you
purchased your box (Best Buy, digital download, etc.) determines which
of the exclusive UPCs you receive.

Even with a few nagging inconsistencies, style="font-style: italic;">Sword of the New
World is
possibly the best imported MMOG to hit the Western shores in a long,
long time. Even when I played through Lineage 2, it didn’t
quite captivate me as thoroughly as my romp in Sword has. style="font-style: italic;">Sword of the
New World provides a thoroughly original experience, and
if it weren't
for a few nagging doubts about the quest design and the grind, Sword
would be a truly award winning game. If
you’re a fan of stylistic artwork and are looking for a new
type of MMOG experience, Sword
of the New World: Granado Espada may be
just what you’ve been waiting for.

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for Sword of the New World news and features!