Video Game Review: Perfect World International

In this, my first ever review of an MMORPG video game, I'd like to mention that the AC scoring system has graphics and audio as a combined score. This makes my review seem really harsh. As I explain later, Perfect World has beautiful graphics, but decidedly lackluster sound. This required setting the score to reflect the two opposing extremes, but the sound is really bad, and the graphics, while good, were far from what the title might suggest. So I feel the sound problems skews the final results. That notwithstanding, my quick summary for this game review of Perfect World International is, nice eye candy, but it has very little else to offer. It is a free game, but I'll say in advance that you are getting exactly what you pay for with this offering from Perfect World Co., Ltd.

After Saga of Ryzom shut down their main servers (they might be back online for free now), I've been searching for another MMORPG that offered the same sense of mass-customization that came with Ryzom. The trailers that I saw for Perfect World sold me on the abilities to craft items, to own pets, or to fight from flying mounts. The game had other selling points, such as the stunning spell graphics, expansive playing locations, "endlessly customizable looks," and the ability to become one of three mystical races. Players can become a human, an Untamed creature, or a flying elf. (Say it with me, "Oooooh")

But first, I had to spend a day downloading this 6 GB nightmare, and another two days downloading patches manually. For all of that work, all it took was three minutes with the character editor to reveal a major flaw in the game.

When making the choice of Untamed, where there is no female werewolf beast, nor is there a male kitsune model with ears and a tail. There are male "barbarians" and female "venomancers." The females look like kitsune or neko, and that's their biggest selling point. Just like in Second Life, I can be a catgirl. (Say it with me, "Squeeeee!" Hey, shut up! Don't judge me just because I'd like to have a tail and fuzzy ears.)

As you can probably guess, my first character ended up being an Untamed vemonancer, but I decided to buck my past trend for catgirls, and I became a true kitsune. Taking a few more minutes to fuss with my hair and makeup (no, seriously) I finally decided that I was ready to check out the game. This deposited me in the home territory of the Untamed, and I got so bored by the location that I paused and went back into the character editor again.

Choosing a male Untamed gives you the exciting options of being a big, male wolf, tiger, or panda bear, among others. However, you lose almost all of the options for affecting your appearance. So in effect, no matter what you choose, you look like every other barbarian in the game. And frankly, barbarian translates as "tank." Flying elf becomes "ranged ammo guy," and venomaner becomes "I need a female character to watch while I'm gaming, but I don't want anyone to call me 'she' or attempt any roleplaying with me."

The elves and the humans do offer some slightly better visual customization, but nobody has a cross-class capability. Every race ends up having specialized roles, and there aren't that many options when it comes to making characters. Perhaps I'm just setting the bar too high by comparing this game's character classes to Anarchy Online, which gave almost every race the option of choosing any class. Sure, choosing certain race and class combinations could create character handicaps, but then that was part of the challenge in rolling say, an Atrox doctor.

But here in Perfect World, you're pretty much stuck choosing humans if you want to go with certain combat classes, and you have to go with the Untamed males if you want to tank. There's no variety here to make the choices interesting.I mean, whay can't I make a female tank? I could in WoW or AO. Oh, right. This isn't WoW or AO. This is the cheap wannabe.

Have I sucked the joy out of this juicy nugget of MMORPG goodness yet?

Herein we've already stumbled on the biggest problem of the game. The supposedly customizable people aren't very customizable at all unless you spend money through Zen (think of it as a virtual currency) to buy costumes. Upon your arrival in the game, it quickly becomes clear how everyone looks like everyone else, even if they've made an effort to look different. This also shows how many people are just trying to get by on the freebies. So while the locations look great, the characters look like walking masses of clones.

Problem number two is, the first portion of the game's tutorials involves very little combat, and a lot of looking around to use the map and compass tools. Figuring out how to get into combat is dull, and the combat itself is too laid back. The music doesn't help, as even the tense battle music is soothing and mellow. It's never grating, and I suppose that should be a plus. But on every attempt that I made to run missions, I ended up feeling drowsy because of the relaxing background music. I would think the point of the soundtrack isn't to convince me to log out and go to bed.

I should at least try to mention the "engaging story." Briefly, the gods created a whole bunch of stuff. Then one day they didn't like what they made. They said, "ooops," and hit reset in true biblical style with a flood. Out of these chaotic races, the gods saved a few races in an "Ark-like location," and those races grew and evolved for thousands of years unmolested. (Man, talk about breathtaking writing. It's so epic and biblical.) But then, something evil, which apparently could breathe underwater, decided to show up and invade this perfect world. Now, is that time, when the three races must unite and put aside their differences. Now, is that time, when theoretically, the player will take over on developing this story by role playing instead of stat rolling. NOW, is the time, of the Perfect World! (Insert crashing, powerful music by Dvořák here.)

But the problem with the RPG element in this game is the same with most online RPGs, in that none of the player involved spend much time trying to RP. No matter which side you pick, you're pretty much just running around looking for groups to join so you can kill things. As in most MMORPGs the world chat is full of text messages like, "Need 24 Barb for bloodwine mission in the valley of sunken chests." Which is fine for me, and I deal with it in games like Anarchy Online and Saga of Ryzom by only responding to the questions that I know the answers to, or when someone is requesting a character in my class and level.

However, the population of Perfect World seems to be filled with children, so every other line between requests for help or team up is "F0CK j00 N00Bs 1N UR 45535!! Pl4y and 5hut up!" No, I mean every other line, all night. Frankly, it did not encourage me to attempt to roleplay as a shy, young kitsune who was new to the world. In fact, it made me want to leave faster.

The graphics and character designs are gorgeous, and after drubbing the game on so many other points, I feel it is only fair to point out that the designers have crafted an exquisite world with some really amazing graphical special effects for the world, and for the spells. Particularly impressive was the solar lens flare effect which happens when you are looking near the sun with the player camera. There is also a slight white-out effect from this, but it is never blinding, so I don't see it as something that might make combat awkward.

But instead, it's combat system that makes combat awkward. There's no queuing system for the magic or the melee attacks. You just click on a button and wait until the built-in timer for the action counts down. That's one timer to wind up, and one timer for cool down, and no queue. Oh, whee, this is...dull. And again, when adding low button-clicking with slow, soothing music, the experience is enough to push players away to doing something else besides playing in this "perfect world."

And when it comes to the enemies, it's all just a random "Chex mix" of bad guys from old fantasy games. So there is a gnome wandering the countryside along the giant scorpions and the walking flame dudes. One of the selling points of the venomancer is supposed to be that I can tame and train any animal in the game to be me pet, provided that it is one level below mine. So, before I can use it as a pet, I have to be able to fight it solo? Then what good is having the silly thing as a pet?

And another seemingly cool feature ends up being pointless. Some creatures can turn into animals, and then, it is possible for other players to rid them. This only sounds cool in theory, but since every character can buy flying equipment, there seems to be little point to riding someone else around to deal with threats on the ground, when you can fly and avoid those problems. It is also possible to carry a character, but again, this ability to double up seemed kinda pointless, except as a way for high-level character to convey slower flying low-level characters. And aside from that, it looks silly.

So, bottom line, if you could judge a game on graphics alone, Perfect World would come out looking great. But with the lack of variety, poor gaming community attitude, flawed combat system, and sleepy music, a visit to this virtual world quickly becomes a decidedly less than perfect gaming experience.