Review: EverQuest 2
by The Dark Messenger

The Wheel of Steel and Fire

Combat in EQ 2 starts rather simple and without any major innovation compared to other games in this genre. You select your target and choose your attack out of the combat moves you've already obtained or learned. The same goes for wielding magic or casting enchantments.

However, there is something unique in the combat system of EQ 2: After a while every character learns to activate the so-called "Combat Wheel" allowing for a Heroic Opportunity. Using this, your character is able to combine standard attacks into a very powerful "combo"-attack. As easy as it sounds, mastering this wheel is quite a challenge, since you have to trigger the attack styles in the correct order. While this may not be a problem when you're fighting alone, successfully using the "Combat Wheel" in a group fight is a major deed, since every action of the group has an influence on the "Wheel" that was triggered by a character. The rewards of mastering the "Wheel", however, - attacks against all enemies, group healing - are worth the efforts!


Hotkey-Mania

While getting around EQ 2 in the first hours of the game is rather easy, learning to use all the controls at your disposal is quite a different story. The game lets you customize the entire game display (User Interface) - beginning with the icons on the hotkey-bars and ending with the translucency of every single window. It takes a while to get a hang of all the possibilities to modify the game to your personal needs, but after having found all the right settings, you're glad about this level of adjustability SOE put in the game.

Apart of these different control settings, the Main Menu of EQ 2 lets you alter nearly every single issue of the game, its display and its controls. The sheer endlessness of possibilities seems a bit overwhelming at first, and it's doubtful that the standard gamer will ever use more than a fraction of all those options. But it proves, that SOE wanted to give player as much control over the game as possible and to assure that everyone can play the game as they want to.

"Oh my, it's beautiful here"

The graphics and sounds of EQ 2 were the features everyone excessively talked about prior to the game's release, and now everyone can see and hear why: EQ 2 is simply the best-looking RPG (online and offline) I've seen so far (I haven't seen "Vampires 2", yet, okay?). Lush and wide landscapes, beautiful cities, fantastic animations and brilliantly designed creatures makes you stop at nearly every corner of the world and press the "Take Screenshot"-key.
Another eyecatcher are the spectacular combat moves and spell effects. I have never witnessed such bombastic fights in an RPG as the group encounters in EQ 2. Sometimes, it's even a bit over the top - amidst all the lightning storms, fireballs and glowing auras, you sometimes lose focus of the enemies in front of you!

The magnificent musical score by movie composer Laura Karpman adds a certain grandeur to the game, although the themes are repeated a bit too often. The whole world is rich with different sounds that put even more authenticity into the place. And last but not least, nearly every NPC has a voice: over 130 hours of voice-overs are implemented in the game, making Norrath a bustling, lively and noisy place.

Sure, all this comes with a price: without a powerful CPU, a lot of RAM and, especially, a fast graphic card working under the hood of your PC, the world of EQ 2 will lose a lot of its splendor!


New Home

Somehow, I'm happy: Since having spotted EQ 2 at this year's Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany for the first time, I was hoping that this game would live up to its huge potential and not become another nice graphic demo without any depth in gameplay. That's exactly what happened: SOE put players into a fascinating and beautifully looking world full of various quests, exotic creatures and vast landscapes to explore. The game's controls are easy to learn for everyone while, on the other hand, offering numerous possibilities for the advanced user. Group play is encouraged greatly, thus stressing one of the main concepts of MMORPGs.

EverQuest II has succeeded it's prequel, but you have to live without PvP for now. The lack of PvP, especially since players are divided into two factions, causes quite some confusion at first, but who knows - SOE might just throw in a PvP server at some point. Everyone who wants to fight it out with other real-live players right now, should avoid the "peaceful" nature of EQ 2's gameplay and choose Blizzard's WoW or Mythic's DAoC. All the others can join me in Norrath, tackling myriads of quests and enjoy another day in the most beautiful place there ever was on a computer screen!

- Sebastian "The Dark Messenger" Schmucker