Team VanGuard

Aion:

The Good:
1. PVP can be very challenging and rewarding.
2. Story content “if you actually read it”
3. Game engine is great, able to run on lower system specs and still look great. Even at max setting the game is not terribly taxing on a decent PC.
4. The Dev’s have been doing a great job keep up with player suggestions
5. Character creator, while not terribly detailed, but you can still modify the look of your character quite well. Being able to scale the hands/feet/arms/legs …etc really shines

The Bad:
1. PVP, while very fun, you have players that love abusing the system.
2. Bots, you what they are and they are in every MMO out there.
3. Price/rates/earning can be very very challenging, it can get down right irritating and they really is no reason behind it.
4. Forced grouping/teaming, a big turn off for people that like to go solo



City of Heroes/Villains:

The Good:
1. Some PVP content is very rewarding
2. Paragon Studios is doing a great job listening to their player base.
3. Character creator, probably one of the best out there.
4. Story content and Area maps/zones are quite large
5. Probably one of the best games for grouping/teaming. Lv40’s toons playing at Lv10 and still getting their respective EXP and drops or vice versa.

The Bad:
1. Old game engine
2. Old game engine with new “add on” game code or as they call it “Ultra Mode” it does really hurt the game. I understand what they tried to do, but when compared to Aion “and how much less Aion uses your systems resources maxed out” Paragon Studios really should have just started a new game engine from the ground up OR implemented CoH/V into the Crytek Engine as Aion has done/is.
3. What the Character creator lacks. The scaling in the creator is horrid in my opinion. There are a few options to change the scaling for the body, but not enough to really make characters stand apart from everyone else.
4. “The Nerf” many fun things aboutCoH/V has been nurfed over the years and for no apparent reason. I understand people abusing the game mechanics, but nerfing certain thing in the game for no apparent reason is very irritating. One of my personal irritations is the nerf they implemented with Tanks and being able to aggro a solid 3 eight man mobs, it can’t be done anymore.

Final Fantasy 14 “just started the Open Beta”

My review: “so far”
1. The game engine seems nice, but very taxing. I can’t see many people playing on low end PC’s with what I would call decent graphics.
2. Updates and initial download via torrent ….. Simply idiotic. 8 hours to download the game on an 8Meg connection. It shouldn’t have taken any where near that amount of time.
3. Configuring the game “right now” has to be done with the game shut down.
4. Starting the game and playing, not for the new to MMO players. Not at all in the way of help tips or hints
5. Character Creator…..worst I’ve seen aside from Final Fantasy 11. They might as well just said “here is a toon, now go play” The options are ridiculously narrow. It seems like the creator was an after thought and not a priority. I give it a -10 very disappointed with it.
6. With all the MMO’s out there, Square could have taken some hints for Controls/Targeting/HUD/Chat and all of thee above. Not sure what they were thinking. I can say it’s much much better than Final Fantasy 11, but much worse than any other MMO I have played in the last 4 years. Again it seems an after thought and not a priority.


I ‘m certainly going to give it more time, I really do want to like the game. The targeting and such will take sometime to learn “more than most” but I’ll push through it.

I will say that Square needs to pay attention to what is on the market now. Not because they should be cookie cutter, but so new players can hop right in and have fun instead of taking a week or two to learn the mechanics. They can be original with story content, add-ons and the character creator “which as I said is incredibly bad”.

Anyway, just my 2 cents on Final Fantasy 14. I know a lot of die hard fans will not agree.