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More
than a Millennium has passed since the Weave of Magic was
viciously torn apart. The source of all arcane power and magic
was then utterly lost. Now, a thousand years later, magic
has come seeping back into the world, reawakening long-forgotten
relics and ancient shrines...
Dawnspire
features team-based online action with persistent characters
and five player classes, all with their own unique playing
style. You can unlock accomplishments and win awards as you
prove yourself with and against players from all over the
world, with no monthly outlay for the pleasure of playing.
The game features team-based online action with five original
playable classes, global rankings, full guild support, a unique
and challenging game mode and a dedicated community fully
supported through the game.
For
those of you who, like me, are not happy to spend good money
on online roleplay games where you have to pay a monthly subscription,
it comes as a relief to see that Dawnspire offers free
online play. While that's a welcome start you'll find it hard
to track down that many people actually playing online at
any one time. This is a little bit of a pain as the fun in
this style of game is derived from the fact that they are
designed so that you can hook up with lots of other players
from across the globe and then merrily hack and slash your
way through the environments from dungeons to forests etc
until you've looted and slaughtered so hard that you suddenly
realise that you haven't lived in the real world for a few
days.
Battle
takes place on servers running maps for up to 16 players.
Players get killed and respawn just like in first person shooters,
while trying to complete the objectives set up before the
other team claims the win. Each game takes only about 10 to
20 minutes, and teamplay, cunning and player skill alone will
determine the outcome. Possibly the biggest problem here though
is the fact that there are no novice maps. Basically when
you start playing you may well be playing against well seasoned
gamers and that is a real bind. It would have been much more
welcome if there had been novice levels where you can build
up your strengths etc before being confronted by seasoned
players.
Two
game modes are available. In Relic Conquest the basic
concept is simple, find and bring all three relics to your
base. The first team to claim all the relics wins the round.
If the time limit is reached the team with the most relics
secured in the base wins. All the relics have unique effects
requiring different tactics to capture.
In
Shrine Domination the goal is to capture and hold four
places of worship, known as shrines. The two teams start out
with a number of points, and holding a shrine gradually reduces
the enemy score. The first team to reduce the enemy score
to zero wins. The four shrines all give your team different
bonuses that grow stronger the longer you hold on to them.
Choosing the most important shrines for your team and defending
them is key to winning the game.
The
game's set-up is fairly straightforward. Once you've sorted
yourself out with a free account, it's time to create your
character. This is pretty run-of-the-mill Dungeons &
Dragons style races and skills options. And then you can
log on and play.
This
game only really works well when you are in a large group
of other players, but more often than not we logged on to
find only a handful of players wandering around. This meant
that most of the characters we encountered were computer controlled
bots - who seemed to want to kill us. This meant that we spent
a lot of time respawning, only to be killed again and again.
This
got incredibly frustrating very quickly and as such it's not
difficult to see why there weren't many human players logged
on. This is a shame, because the few times we managed to find
a band of humans, the hack and slash aspect of the game was
very enjoyable.
Sadly
this game is only ever going to be any good if more people
purchase it. As it stands at present it's not a game I would
recommend.
Nick
Smithson
Buy
this item online
We
compare prices online so you get the cheapest
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£14.98
(Amazon.co.uk)
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£14.99
(Play.com) |
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£14.99
(HMV.co.uk) |
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£19.99
(Sendit.com) |
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£27.97
(Thehut.com) |
All prices correct at time of going to press.
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