Aion

Game Info

Publisher: NCsoft

Developer: NCsoft

Genre(s): Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Players: Thousands

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: September 22, 2009

Summary

Aion is a massively multiplayer online RPG where players ascend to divinity and fight in an epic celestial war. Wielding divine powers and the capability for true flight, players must bring salvation to their people and restore balance to a vast, beautiful world shattered by cataclysm. [NCsoft]

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this game is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 252 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Copain no gave it a0:
The game is terrible. The idea behind it is great! But BAD development led to it's destruction. It looks good, that's great, and in order to do that they make game play BAD, such as you not being able to move thanks to spells, instant cast spells NOT BEING INSTANT, and hey, ridiculously OP attacks. The game is OVERRUN with bots, but the admins don't want to do anything about it. You know what they DO do though? They make it harder on the players by making it so Aether items (Which you gather while flying, which until higher levels you get almost no time for) poison you and you have to cleanse it... By sitting there and typing random crap while you die from FALL DAMAGE. The game is centered around PVP, and it balances that TERRIBLY. Thanks to different factions having different skills, each class is hindered if it didn't choose the right faction (Such as the Templar's on Elyos's side being hurt bad because while they get a weak shield, their counterpart gets a high damage life drain). Also, in PVP, the TANKS are one of the weakest things. They are the only class with an on demand shield or a good "Get away" skill without a high CD, or even the ability to chase (Their one ability to stop runners gets ruined if it's 10 Damage is partially absorbed). Further more, the Tank class is worse at tanking than the DPS class who is an offbranch of the same class (The Glad, off branch of Warrior), thanks to it having no on demand threat boost ("Instants" have a cast time, thank you good graphics?) where as the Glad's get a stance system to boost threat and take less damage while steal DOING MORE damage, Glad's even get a +BLOCK (Shield Block) Spell when they are supposed to use TWO HAND WEAPONS. Events? Events are terrible. The Christmas even got a Tree. That's it. No Quest, no gifts, no music, nothing.

Ivan D gave it a4:
Pros: - Good graphics - Characters can fly in some areas Cons: - Not nearly enough PvE content - No brains needed for the skillbar arrangement. Just collect the skills for the combo and use it. - Quests are unrewarding and the repeatable quests are a joke. - One needs quite a hardware for not to see the "epic" PvP in a slideshow. - Lots and lots of gold traders and scammers. - The community... Well it's almost absent and generally not the friendliest. - Poor end-game content. Overall - A generous 4.

Gabriel Q gave it a1:
I give this game a '1' because I can use the 2 discs as coasters. Otherwise this game is about 5 minutes of anticipation. For a good 5 minutes I kept thinking, 'this is going to get better right?'. And no...each minute was more disappointing than the last... They should make inmates in prison play this game as punishment. Instead of breaking rocks they could be grinding quests instead...

Paul W gave it a4:
If you’re a hardcore PvP fan, or someone who likes old school grinding than Aion may appeal to you. My first MMORPG game was Everquest Online Adventures, when Everquest Online Adventures was released MMORPG games were no where near as advanced as they are today. It was expected for there to be mass grinding with little to no quests. Fast foreword to a couple years later and things changed drastically in the MMO world. Games after EQOA have more advanced graphics, better storylines, more quests, and better PvP. However, when I turn on Aion I feel like I am going back in time, not a nostalgia trip but to a time when MMORPG games sucked. Let me first say that the PvP in Aion is fun. However, the PvE expericnce is poorly done. I found myself running out of quests with nothing to do but grind for hours to finish off a level. I canceled my subscription before reaching the level cap because the grind is too extreme for my tastes. Even with double experience weekends I could not take it anymore.

Paul N gave it a9:
Visuals are stunning and definitely make it a must-play game. Player advancement Ok, but new skills not available at every level. Some quests not possible to complete without a team. A few quests encountered that were buggy. Personal store interesting concept but not sure about viability.

The Chase gave it a9:
If you give the game less then 5 only because its a grind you really need to play more games. Anyways Ive played aion since beta Pros: Graphics, Sound, Large Scale organized pvp, crafting produces useful items, plenty of quests to keep you busy. pvp designated and pve designated zones. Monthly rewards for subscribing to the game. Cons: Solo PvP is unbalanced you will be useless without a group if you play certain classes. Drop rates for items are really shitty. a 20 minute boss fight with no loot is pretty annoying. pvp highly dependent on consumables, making it costly to be at your best. Instances are very very long because there are a lot of repeatable quests you do during them that u have to run out and back in for which takes about 5 minutes, when u have a group and 6 people do it there is a lot of slow down. Thats all i can think of but another thing to mention is until u get near level 50 pvp does not scale well. Even though the cons look longer i still find this one of the most enjoyable mmo's i have found in a long time, and considering this game is still pretty fresh the horizon is looking bright and im sticking around.

Trudi A gave it a3:
Looks flashy, in fact very flashy. Everything in this game is done in a stylish manner. It's easy to pick the game up and also easy to appreciate the game. At first, the game gives you an impression that its somewhat a redux for WoW. None the less you'll be impressed with the, graphics, user interface (including build in quest helper) arial PVP and vast character customization possibilities. Game play is also quite enjoyable at lower to mid levels, you learn to appreciate the game. Earlier stages of the game I thought bunch of people sat down and asked them selves "how can we improve wow" prior to designing the game. But soon the novelty wears off. For myself the game utterly disappointed me in PvP, versatility of builds, user interface, lack of contents and other balance issues. Firstly the user interface which I adored absolutely in the beginning. Much appreciated inbuilt quest help will more often fail to locate mobs and quest NPC (it is funny how this doesn't really happen until you hit mid 20's coincidence? ). At times I missed my curse client.... The lack of user customization of interfaces will put a frown on your face, if you are used to the likes of WOW and guildwars customization of your HP bar etc (size, color, place etc) then you're going to be extremely disappointed. I'll now move on to game contents Lack of versatility: the game lacks versatility in builds; when I say this I don't mean every second guy will have the same skills. (in this game stigmas are the only ways to differentiate your builds, until lvl 45 you're only allowed to have up to 4 stigmas = thats 4 skills.....) The only times where you'll see the guy next to you is having a different set of skills, is that the poor guy couldn't yet afford the stigmas. this is the worst during your lvl 30's where you can only have 3 stigmas, but really every templar will have unwavering devotion and inescapable judgment equipped, leaving 1 stigma slot for 'your build'. PVP system is quite horrible, at first you may be fooled by the fancy motions and effects, but you'll soon become a victim of auto target. Unlike in WoW a lvl 45 can run into a mob of lvl 38's and wipe them out, and there's nothing you can do to stop the higher lvl. If you encounter someone 5~7 lvl + rest assured you wont' land a single sleep, root, stun, slow etc. Simply there's no way of beating the higher lvl (unless its somewhat 2 ~3 party vs 1). The game lacks in contents. By that I mean it hasn't enough raids. No where near enough. Even though the game may be fairly new what I'm about to describe is unacceptable in my standards. The game only offers a few instances once you hit max level. There are some instances available in abyss (free for all maps), but these have 1 day cool down, and your race must own the respective fortresses for you to be able to enter these instances. Last balance between classes. Most games suffer from balances between classes, but Aion has to be the game that suffers from inbalance from classes in pvp. Since skill play a small role in pvp battles it makes this matter worse. Overall the game is a good eye candy and is very appealing for such a young game, also very easy to pick up and learn. However a lot needs to be worked on in respect to contents user interface and bot problems(customer reps usually will give you a copy and pasted response that had nothing to do with your inquiry, and yes that bot you reported last week will still be around, only richer and 10 lvls higher). I may come back and revisit the game in the future, once more contents are available along with some pvp issues, but until then this game will remain as an eye candy, but nothing more.

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