Virtual Fantasy Worlds

By Shawn Toh • UrbanWire Contributor
• email reporter • email story • printer friendly version

With today’s advanced computer networking technology, many Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games are giving your wild imagination a run for their money. Although some may argue that nothing can replace the depth of human inquisitiveness, these intricately designed virtual fantasy worlds are still worth that extra brain juice to explore. UrbanWire previews some of the top titles due for release in November and recommends 2 places you might be thinking of losing yourself.

The Matrix Online
World of Warcraft

The Matrix Online

Fans of the movies will be able to jack back into The Matrix with this game by Monolith Productions, producer of critically acclaimed titles such as Tron 2.0 and Aliens Vs Predator 2. Starting sometime after the 3rd film, and with an increasing number of people waking up from the system, 3 factions from the movie, Neo’s hackers, the Machines, and the Merovingians, begin to vie for power.

Players create their own characters and can eventually attain the skills of Morpheus or Trinity, like jumping across buildings rooftops among other mind-boggling stunts we’ve seen in the movie.

An interesting feature the game has is its adaptable and highly customisable skill set. Players acquire skills by downloading certain ‘programmes’, and will be able to trade them with other players, which makes for some interesting skill combinations.

The environments in The Matrix Online are extremely detailed, with towering skyscrapers, edgy streets and basically a translation of the movie’s environments into the game. The maps are huge, with plenty to explore, and the gloomy cityscape perfectly portrays the mood of The Matrix.

The characters, while having access to an enormous array of dress styles from punk tattered jeans to slick black leather trenchcoats ala the movie, don’t quite move as fluidly as you might expect. While the ability to do all manner of kicks, blocks and punches in combat is cool and all, the characters move *just* a bit too jerkily for my liking.

It’s a tough enough job, having to live up to the Matrix franchise, not to mention, also converting it into an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) format. So far, The Matrix Online just manages to pass that mark.

Minimum Specs:

Pentium 4 or Athlon 1.8 GHz

256 MB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce3 graphics card or better

World of Warcraft

The World of Warcraft MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) lets you explore the intricate world of Azeroth.

You can pick from 8 races including Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Night Elves on the side of The Alliance, and the Orcs, Trolls, Undead and Taurens on the side of The Horde. In addition, 9 character classes exist – Paladins, Rogues, Priests, Hunters, Warlocks, Druids, Warriors, Mages and Shamans, giving you over 1,000 spells and skills, an impressive number for any modern day role-playing game, to acquire and master.

The game is beautifully crafted, bringing to life the snow-capped mountains, intricate and moody cities, and lush green jungles of Azeroth, all there for the inquisitive to explore. Character models move realistically, though the game does have a somewhat “cartoony” look to it which may not appeal to some gamers. Nonetheless, the game features some truly breath-taking environments inhabited by unique monsters and characters, like the ferocious Furbolgs, a tribal race of bear-men, and the Green Dragonspawn, guardians of the goddess Ysera.

The sound isn’t too bad either. The background music isn’t too overpowering, yet manages to convey the mood of the various environments. The sound of weapons striking and the roars of monsters are convincing as well. All these help to immerse players in the World of Warcraft.

The game offers some interesting features. Players can traverse vast distances by riding Gryphons or Wyverns, and in time, with monthly updates to the game promised by developer Blizzard Entertainment, personal mounts will be available. Items can be made and customised and players can form guilds. Social commands such as friendlists, which allow players to see which of their friends are currently online and animated character expressions or “emotes” that add a unique touch to players who wish to further roleplay are available too.

This is definitely one game to look out for.

Minimum Specs:

800 Mhz or higher CPU.

256 Megabytes or more of RAM.

Geforce 2 Graphics Card or better.

3 Gigabytes or more of available hard drive space.

DirectX® 9.0 or above.

This game is also supported on the Mac System OS:

1.0 GHz or higher, G4 or G5 processor.

512 Megabytes RAM or higher. DDR RAM recommended.

ATI or NVIDIA video hardware with 64 MB VRAM or more.

3 Gigabytes or more of available hard drive space.

MacOS X 10.3 ("Panther") or better

Images taken from www.thematrixonline.com and www.blizzard.com/wow