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PC | RPG | EverQuest II

Boxart for EverQuest II
EverQuest II 60 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.0
  • SOUND: 4.5
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 4.0
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.8
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.1

Review: EverQuest II

Review by STARDINGO | 12/16/2004 | 17:37:13 PM PST

Complex, huge, versatile, and lots of fun with friends, but the slow-pace and visual schizophrenia might be a turnoff.

EverQuest II is a lot like its father-a dense and complex RPG set in a rich world that almost requires a lifetime to fully enjoy. But for all the improvements, the game is still very much rooted in old MMORPG philosophies. The ebb and flow will feel very familiar to people who've been playing these kinds of games for a while.

Fire and Ice
The game's key strengths are group combat, character development, and immersion. Soloing in EQII can be a drag if you're not careful and patient, but once you have a group of like-minded adventurers with you, it's extremely entertaining (especially with the Heroic Opportunity "group combos"), and the character animation and spell effects are startling in their fluidity. Each player in the game looks unique thanks to the superb character generation, and the game lets you branch off into a number of specializations as your level progress, making you feel that much more special. The designers do a good job making you feel like you're "living" in Norrath rather than just playing a game there, with fully voiced NPCs, lots of flavor text and historical footnotes, and a quest system that forces you to fully explore instead of leading you around by the hand. The "newbie experience" is also worth noting, as the intro bits do a great job explaining the nuances of MMOs to people who find themselves in unfamiliar territory.

The game's two key weaknesses are the art direction and the pacing. While EQ II is technically hyper-impressive (it probably won't look outdated for a couple years at least thanks to the crazy number of customization options), the artists didn't quite utilize the technology to the fullest. Many characters and enemies look superb, but the world they live in looks drab, depressing, and under-designed. The user interface is simple and clean, but the icons and frames are extremely dull. Quests are just about pouring out of every orifice in the game (simply look for someone to "wave" to you to know if he or she's got one), but you spend too much time running from point A to point B and back again or looking for hard-to-find NPCs or too-specific creatures in a field full of similar-looking monsters.

Continental Shift
EverQuest II a metric crapload of game, to be sure-complex, huge, versatile, and lots of fun with friends, but slow-paced and visually schizophrenic. When Norrath calls, you'd better be prepared to give a very long answer.


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