A game that could've been Awesome

Note: I'll try not to bash the game but I don't think I can really help it. It's just that bad. Oops, there I go again. Anyway, onto the review.



Introduction - RuneScape is a game set in a fantasy world, which was created by Jagex (www.jagex.com). In this game, you play as just a person who can do a wide range of things of your choice. All you have to do is make a name, a password and pick your appearance and boom, you're done and can log in. You can play as a trader who does nothing but trade to earn more money, a simple adventurer who plays to gain levels and acquire more powerful items, etc. It's a semi-customizable game but it's quite limited in certain areas. I'll get more into that later on.



You can choose to either play for free (free to play, aka F2P, as it's known in-game) or pay $5/month (''members'' or P2P [pay to play]) to receive special ''benefits.'' The benefits you receive range from new quests to complete to new items to use/make to more areas to access. I haven't experienced the P2P version because, honestly, I didn't find the game worth paying for.

However, since this is a free game, you must expect to meet the ''High Levelers'' and griefers. I've walked around Falador (a town in RuneScape, I'll refer to the game as RS from now on) and have been taunted by people because at the time, I was wearing a Rune Medium Helmet instead of a Rune Large Helmet (Rune Full Helm), which is a better piece of armor. Expect to be called a ''Noob'' by nearly everyone you pass, and pray that you don't meet a griefer. You know, the people that'll follow you around and will harass you to improve their gameplay at the expense of your own gameplay.

If you decide to play RS, please do not make a stupid name. You know exactly what I'm talking about - XxOsamaMustDiexX, SSJVegeta777, ILuvSekz69, etc. You aren't funny; the only thing you're accomplishing by creating names like that is making yourself look like a fool. So, please, save yourself the embarrassment and make a normal name. And sorry, Gricksym and Gungnire are taken by me.

Ratings -

Gameplay (2/10) - The one thing that could've made this game a smash-hit was shattered to pieces when they made it so incredibly boring and repetitive. Basically, there are no ''goals'' to strive for in RS because they're all easy to achieve. My goal was to hit level 55 (not too high but I like the number 55) and to get a full set of Rune (the best set of armor in the F2P version of RS) within a few months of playing the game. After playing on and off for about two weeks, I ended up with an entire set of Rune, including some Rune weapons. I was also level 40ish. I could've easily hit 55 but I chose not to because of real-life stuff.



Money is so easy to come by that it makes me want to cry that money isn't this easy to gather in other MMORPGs. On average, with my character, I was easily making 10k-15k (10,000 to 15,000) gold a day, and I could quadruple that amount in 2 hours if I decided to *really* get money. No, these aren't exaggerations, these numbers are real. And I wasn't exploiting or anything, this is just from hunting normal mobs. Which brings me to another thing about the gameplay.



Leveling in this game is odd. You gain experience, but you don't really ''level up'' unless your combat skills go up. See, when you fight, you choose to either put the exp you gain into Strength (more damage), Accuracy (hit or miss), or Defense (take less damage), or you could split the exp three ways into all three skills.



I don't know the exact formula but you won't ''level up'' unless you raise your combat skills a few times. It's quite easy to level up. Pick a spot, and kill the very same thing over and over. No matter what level you are, it will give you the same amount of experience that you would've gotten if it was, say, 1 level above you instead of 20 levels below you. I've seen level 100+ people hunt level 70ish monsters over and over.



Oh, there are quests in this game too, and are relatively easy to complete. Don't expect to put too much time in these quests unless you REALLY want to try and enjoy them. The ''ultimate'' quest in RS in the F2P version requires you to get pieces of a map together, gather some parts to construct a boat, then go to a ''hidden'' island to kill a Dragon. The Dragon itself is a weak monster. The common strategy is to bring a lot of food with you (when you consume food, you regain health) then attack the beast, run away, eat some food, then continue attacking it. Rinse and repeat - one or two minutes later and the quest is over.  (LOL)

There are tradeskills in this game as well, such as cooking, smithing, fishing, crafting, etc. This is probably the only aspect of RS that I enjoyed. I particularly liked mining because all you have to do is find/buy a pick-axe, then find a rock to mine and just stand there the entire time, clicking on the rock until you obtain a piece of ore. Do it over and over until you run out of energy or until you run out of space. Smelt the ores and smith them into something, sell them to people, or bank them for later use, and then go back.



When you do a tradeskill, you gain experience in that particular skill. Like, mine copper for awhile and you'll have enough skill points to mine iron. Then mine the heck out of iron and then do coal. And so on. Mindless but fun, for some odd reason.

Story (0/10) - There's really no story in this game unless you include the horrible dialogue from the NPCs (Non-Player Characters) in this game. One of the quests requires you to become a cross-dresser (if you're a male) in order to rescue a prince. Then it's over and basically the game forgets about you. There are no dynamic quests in this game, where one thing can change the entire storyline. It's more like ''do this and then you get quest points and some sweet items, then do another for the same things,'' basically.



This is the worst part of the game, followed closely by the graphics and sound (which are up next). This was obviously something they didn't think about so they didn't bother implementing it, except when they put in quests. Which, by the way, was a sad attempt at trying to make up for the lack of a storyline.



There's really no point in playing this if you're into storylines and plots and such, because there isn't any. This game is for people who enjoy doing the same things over and over, or who like interacting. And trust me, I won't be the first to tell you that the social interaction in this game is VERY poor, because most conversations will go like this:



You: Hey, what's up man? Do you know where I can purchase bronze armor?

Mr. High Leveler: Noob, Noob, Noob,

You: I'm only level 5, what did you expect me to wear?

Mr. High Leveler: OMG, a noob that doesn't have a brain. Noob, nOOB, nOOb.

You: Cool. Hey, want to do some quests together?

Mr. High Leveler: I r u nuts dam u. quest are for noobs. and i have to improve my strnght lvl 98.

You: Ok, bye...



Quite sad...anyway.

Graphics/Sound (1/10) - The graphics in RS are horrible, to say the least. Yes, I understand a part of the game is free. Do not forget that there are ads and members that help pay for the expenses. If you have not yet played RS, then imagine this - a pre-schooler with a crayon, drawing random things on a piece of paper. Now, imagine that, only with the random things being animated. Voila, you have RS graphics.

The armor in RS, when equipped, looks like you just wrapped your character in colored styrofoam. The animation for walking is, well, quite sad. The walking animations in NES games looks a lot better when you compare it to RS. The battle animations are even worse. Have you ever played with an action figure that does stuff like karate chops? Because if you have then you know exactly how the fighting animations look like in RS. And no, I'm not joking, they really do look like that. *sigh*



The swords look like thick, immobile pieces of cable, while the buildings look like they were made in 1-D. Water doesn't move, it just...sits there as if it was expecting something better to come along. When you try to shift the view while you're in combat, both you and the monster you're fighting will shift with the camera. Either the monster is afraid of showing its behind or they were too lazy to draw other perspectives of things. Last time I checked, objects had a back, sides, a top and a bottom

Anyway, enough about the graphics, let's hear some stuff about the sound!



In the free version of RS, you aren't able to hear sounds. However, sign up for members and you'll hear sounds - for certain things. I don't know what things exactly, since I (sometimes) play F2P. I don't know the quality of the sound in the P2P version but maybe one day I'll find out. Then again, I think I'd have more fun spending that $5 on a set of Legos than paying for RS. (yeah, I know - quite a review for sound! Give me $5 and I'll resist the urge to spend it on a pack of gum so I can test out members for you)

Play Time/Replayability (1/10) - Completing my goals in a game that looked to be very promising in a matter of weeks wasn't very cool. Wait, now that I think about it...yes I did think it was very cool. Why? Because then I could STOP playing this game and move onto other things, such as jamming pencils into my eyes to relieve myself of the pain of looking at the RS graphics.



I don't see the point of replaying RS unless you wish to make a PK char (player-killer character - used to fight other people, basically, and nothing else). The PVP (Player Versus Player) in this game isn't even that good, actually. It's exactly like fighting a regular monster except the thing you're fighting is a person and is able to run away and eat food if they think they're about to die. Then they come back and beat you down unless you, too, have eaten some food. Then it starts over. How exciting.



Final Recommendation - I'll be very honest - I wouldn't recommend this game except to people who love clicking games, such as Diablo, except Diablo would seem like the best game ever if you've played it, compared to RS. However, even though my entire review was basically negative, I did have some good times, with a friend of mine. We just hung out and did stuff together which made RS seem like a semi-decent game. So, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy RS is to get one or more friends into it so you can experience how bad programmers can make a game, together! That's what friends are for, right?