WAR! What is it good for?
DateTime:7/8/2009 5:21:12 PM

The MMO crowd's gone wild for Mythic's online RPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. It's claimed an impressive 750,000 registered players, is on track to be one of the best-selling PC games of 2008 and currently enjoys an 88 per cent review score average on Metacritic. But not everyone's as impressed as we are. Here, in an open and honest critique of the game, one writer explains why WAR is nowhere near as good as rival World of Warcraft.

Firstly, it's laggy as hell - A server that doesn't feel like wading through three feet of treacle.

Secondly, a frame rate would be nice. The game doesn't even look that good: textures are gritty and drab, the poly count hardly rivals Crysis and it's not really going overboard on the special effects, either - so why the hell is the frame rate so poor when I'm well beyond the recommended spec?

Thirdly, the animation is risible. With WoW I'm used to combat animations where staff thrusts don't sync properly with the actual hit rolls, but with WAR it's even laggier, and the less said about the ranged weapon animations the better. The Witch Elves' throwing knives are invariably totally invisible (the animation doesn't fire at all) and the arrow animation for the High Elf Shadow Warrior is beyond hilarious - the arrow arcs 20 feet up into the air before coming back down onto the target, even if he's only standing eight feet away. I know I only have a degree in physics, but I'm fairly sure that arrows don't fly like that...

Fourthly, queues. Server queues, RvR queues... We've waited an hour to get into the Khaine's Embrace scenario, only for the whole thing to be over in five minutes, because the team balance was so poor, we (Destruction) had no healers at all and the Order side were roughly 50 per cent healers (on average about three or four levels above our players, too). How annoying is that? Especially since you've got another wait in a queue to endure before you can try again and hope for a better team balance. Fifthly, for the love of Slaanesh, why the heck do I have to click through a screen showing me the terms and conditions EVERY SINGLE TIME I load up the game? It's almost like they expect us to read them, or something. Here's a hint, Mythic - don't put in unnecessary and annoying barriers between your customers and the game.