Silkroad Online and the hype about MMORPGs

More Silkroad Online artwork here.

Game launcher.

I'm not much of a gamer, myself, seeing as I own no game system, and I used to own a very slow computer that I fear would die if I tried installing a 3D graphics card or other such accessories. However, all that is over and done with and I now have a nice new computer all to myself and tried my hand at those free online MMORPGs (that's Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game for all you non-gamers out there). The ones I tried out were the fairly new Fiesta, Secret of the Solstice, Silkroad and a classic, Maplestory (and I'm sorry, World of Warcraft is currently not in my budget).

The one I enjoyed the most by far was Silkroad Online, a game based on the real silk road linked from Europe to China. When I first picked it up, I was blown away by the graphics. All the character designs and concepts are solid and the armor/clothing is all intricate and aesthetically pleasing. Not only is the art amazing, but the animation of the different animals is spot on and the clouds actually move! It has a huge playing ground since it's supposed to encompass two countries. Also, it has tons of different skills you can constantly level up on and loads of new ones to add to your intelligence as you gain skill points, so you never get bored with fighting even if you've stayed at level 40 for weeks on end.

Now, the cool thing about Silkroad is that it actually has some historical, nonfictional value to it, unlike the other games I've mentioned. It ties together the situation of travelers and merchants on the silk road into an enjoyable game. The downside is that in order to make the game more enjoyable, it's not completely accurate nor should anyone base their history dissertations off of this game. For starters, most of the names are Korean, not Chinese (that can probably be attributed to the fact that Joymax, the company producing Silkroad is Korean) on the China end of the game. Yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention, when creating your character, not only do you get to decide the odds and ends of your character (hair style, height, bustiness), you also get to choose the race of your character.

They only logically have two options: European and Chinese. If you pick European, there are six classes/skills you get to choose from: Rogue, Warrior, Wizard, Warlock, Bard, and Cleric. But not only are there a variety of classes/skills, but you don't have to commit to just one, in fact many users choose around three (one melee, one caster, and one buffer). If you pick Chinese, on the other hand, you get the choice of Archer, Spearman, and Swordsman.

Overall, I give it 4.5/5, recommended for high quality art and animation fanatics such as myself.

This is one of the monsters close up :)