Everquest II
Good: Everquest II has been around for over 8 years now, as a result the game has been gifted with dozens of updates and content expansions. Providing one of the most expansive MMORPG games available.
Bad: Certain areas of Everquest II can feel a little bit grindy, with players being forced to grind monsters to reach the next level.
Everquest II is the elder cousin to Sony Online Entertainment’s original Everquest title. Everquest II originally launched in November 2004 and improves across practically every area of the game compared to the original title. Originally a premium fantasy MMORPG, Everquest II has recently changed to a free to play model, allowing all players to explore the world of Norrath, without content restrictions or level limitations.
Everquest II Review
Everquest II is one of the most popular games of it’s type, spanning over seven years and including six, high-quality content expansions. As such the game offers a huge variety of features, and one of the first you’ll notice, is the expansive race list. There are over twenty unique races that players can choose from, all with their own appearance style and background story. Each of the available races is divided into 3 different categories, Good, Evil and Neutral. The different categories don’t have a huge influence on the game but certain races are restricted to beginning in specific cities and towns. Almost as impressive as the huge amount of available races is the large selection of playable classes. Each class is placed into one of the four available categories Fighter, Healer, Scout and Mage, which represent the typical archetypes found in MMORPG Games. Each of these archetypes then features two sub-classes, with both have access to two more specialization classes, which results in over twenty different available classes, one of the largest selections available for an MMORPG.
The world of Norrath is home to a massive amount of monsters, quests, NPC characters and locations. Players can expect to explore an interesting variety of locations, from eery swaps, to fiery volcanic regions and deadly jungles. Everquest II is home to over 5,000 different monsters to battle, and offers players over 7,000 quests to complete. Quests work in a similar way to the majority of MMORPG games, players get given basic tasks from NPC’s and are rewarded with experience points and gear upon completion. It seems only fitting that a game with so many monsters and quests allows players to reach level 90 before being capped.
Everquest II includes an array of other exciting features such as a robust housing system, giving players their own personal space to decorate with any of the thousands of available items, and dozens of exciting seasonal and holiday events. Although Everquest II is a little long in the tooth, the vast amount of content and detail that have gone into the game makes it one of the strongest free to play MMORPG titles available.
Everquest II has also just been updated to host a revolution in MMO gaming tehnology, SOEmote. Announced earlier this year, SOEmote is a brand new approach to RPG titles unlike anything seen in other MMO games. Using a combination of webcam and microphone support, SOEmote allows players to relay their actions and emotions directly into their in-game character. Your character will frown when you frown, smile when you smile and cheer when you cheer. This unique feature adds a whole new level of depth to MMO gaming and is something we hope to see spread to other Sony Online Entertainment titles.
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