but then I played it.
RYL.net, AKA Risk Your Life.
I was attracted to this game by the promise of a 14-day free trial and its promise of PVP. With twitch even. So, despite the obscene amount of cliched heavy metal on the front page, I downloaded it, installed and tried to play, with the intent to review it for the front page.
No, sorry, these guys aren't getting front page traffic. I hesitate to even give them this much credit.
Had these guys spent more time on animation and less time getting some hackneyed heavy metal band to play on their trailer video, this game might not have been so bad. However, it was bad. Really bad.
Create a character and discover there are 2 races. That's fine, I usually play humans anyway, so I made a human. And tried to pick a suitably non-ugly avatar. NOT POSSIBLE. You have probably 6-8 choices of features, and they all suck. They suck and blow. They are as efficient at sucking and blowing as that new Dyson vaccum claims to be. Just fucking awful.
No problem, eye candy isn't everything. Zone into the world. Find myself immediately IN WATER, not drowning luckily, but not able to get on land. Takes me a minute to find a place where I can haul myself up onto dry land. For some reason, avatars have a problem walking up steeply-angled ruts in the ground. You know, those 85 degree angled mounds of ground 2 inches high? Yeah, those are problems. But I can jump over them. Apparently, when I jump, gravity ceases to work, because I drift up and down with the speed of moon astronauts. I don't so much leap as I do lollygag in mid-air. I am a lollygagger. I do not lolly gag well.
So I'm started with cheesecloth armor, a sword, and no money. Thanks, guys. I look like the extras in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I can't walk over the curb, and I'm clueless. The interface appears to have been drawn with MS Paint, as it's all lines and translucent grays. The buildings do like nice.
But did I mention the animation? It's missing, say half the animation frames needed to make a convincing walk. It's all staggeringly bad and herky jerky. The performance is smooth, but there just aren't enough frames. Finally, I try to find combat with something, another player or otherwise, because I know how MMOG's work. You kill things, you level, you get money and experience to make killing tougher things, etc.
And am immediately 1-shotted by a fucking squirrel. A SQUIRREL. Then I'm ressed, and do it again. Finally, through the use of the most inanely bad map feature I could think of, I find mobs that I can have a chance against. Killing them involves me running up to them, clicking the mouse furiously, once a battle right-clicking to activate a special power, then running around it like a moron trying to dodge its blows. Yes, melee combat meets circle-strafing. Apparently, this is the most effective means of melee there is. And yes, the mobs are that dumb.
The game has what is called "keyboard mode" and "mouse mode." To enter mouse mode, you must hit the ESC key. This is helpful if you want to actually interact with any menus or windows, such as your FUCKING INVENTORY. It's also useful for looting dead mobs, though there is a keyboard shortcut. Moving into keyboard mode just involves pushing the "W" key, which is the forward movement key. And if that sounds awkward, yes, yes it is.
Your special attacks/styles/powers/what have you are all dragged into the quick bar. But instead of activating them with a key stroke (hit 1 to throw your net power, etc.), you hit the number key associated with the power to select that as your active special power. THEN, you right click to activate it. Another right-click will activate that power again, if it has recycled. So to actually use a special power requires a keystroke AND a right mouse-click. WTF?
30 minutes play time, 3 levels gained total, uninstall.
This game is shit. I wouldn't suggest even clicking the link above, unless you want to see what I was talking about. There's a 14-day free trial if you are so inclined to punishment, but I'd just suggest you buy Guild Wars instead.
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