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Rift beta review

On January 5, 2011 by Ash Meehan

What sets it apart from the other mmos:

The biggest thing that sets Rift apart from other mmos out on the market apart from the subclass soul tree is the rifts that can spawn in different zones. You encounter your first real Rift (you do fight one at the end of the starting zone, but they are easy) after you have left the starting zone and well you can’t miss a rift when they form. When a rift is forming the sky darkens and well tentacles appear and the land below it seems to wither and die as monster spawn from the rift. As you enter a rift an icon appears on the right of your screen saying what stage the rift is at and a leaderboard. As you go through each stage the monsters get harder as you complete each stage, at the final stage a rift boss will appear which you must defeat and if the rift are as populated as the one I attended then good luck getting a hit on the last boss. At the end you receive a reward depending where you where on the leaderboard at the end (your place is determined by damage done).

The rifts are the most iconic part of Rift

The next thing that sets Rift apart is something I mentioned earlier which are the classes. The ability to have 3 classes in 1 class makes you feel powerful and lets you have a broad setup. As a cleric you can be a dps and a healer, but there is a limit which is the soul tree. A soul tree is basically a talent tree and every level you gain you get a point to put into 1 soul, so you get 50 points in total to spread across all 3 of your subclasses. But there is a downside to this which is that it feels a bit crazy. A lot of the classes you can choose from are pretty much the same as a mage I found the fire and electric based souls to be similar apart from a small difference, while the experimentalist soul felt more unique as you could summon an elemental pet. Basically the subclasses are all about what you like to do with your classes. For example if you are a dps do you like to focus on direct damage or damage over time etc. Granted I only hit the tip of the iceberg so I can’t fully comment on it.

What makes it feel like other mmos:

This is really the part where Rift lets me down. While the Rifts and the soul trees set it apart from other mmos on the market you can’t help but feel it is like every other mmo out on the market.

The questing offers nothing new to the market. Quests consist of go there and kill or go there and collect some items. But I think I am asking to much for an mmo at the moment to make questing not feel repetitive.

The combat also feels a lot like other mmos. As you would have guessed it is point click mash keys between 1-9 until mob dies and pick up loot and rinse and repeat. I would hope that mmos would grow away from this but alas Rift wont be breaking this mold.

Well I must admit playing Rift I couldn’t help think “oh this reminds me of X mmo”. Which is a bad sign in my eyes, I don’t want to play a new mmo which feels like the last mmo I played if I would have wanted that I would have sticked to the old one. Even some of the things that set the game apart could be easily seen as something taken from another mmo and modified (which isn’t always a bad thing) for example the Rift battles feel like Warhammers sieges).

Summary:

To sum up Rift I would have to say it is a game which has potential to be a good MMO, while there are many features in the game feel similar to other MMOs it doesn’t take away the fact that Rift offers a nice deal. Rift drew me into its world straight away which is a difficult thing to do to me because a lot of MMOs feel to draw me in and make me care about what is going on.

What makes Rift a good MMO is the fact they polished the game to a high standard with very few bugs compared to other launch MMOs.

Score: 80%

An above average MMO which drew me in due to its lovely world and the exciting new features, but many features feel like many other MMOs that are currently on the market right now, but I still recommend a look at it.

Author: Ash Meehan

Hi, I’m the creator of SG Gaming Info. When I’m not working on my writing or creating content for this site’s YouTube channel, I like to relax and enjoy character driven story games.

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