Dark Age of Camelot: A Dark Age is Coming Company: Vivendi Universal It?s 4:35 in the morning, and only reluctantly do I end my session of Dark Age of Camelot. The game?s in beta, after all, and there are other games waiting to be reviewed. I wait for the urge to hop back in and continue slaughtering beasties with my Elven ?Mage? to pass. Slowly, it recedes. I have to admit -- my first impressions of Dark Age of Camelot were not particularly favorable. The only MMORPGs I?ve ever played are the ?originals? -- MUDs, text-based dungeon crawls. The one that I frequented in the past had a great sense of community, and I knew that with something like that plus sharp graphics, I?d probably be sucked in for life. That?s why I?ve never touched EverQuest. But Dark Age of Camelot bothered me. Perhaps it?s the player I chose -- a fighter from Albion. The world seemed a little too empty, a little too barren. I quit, disgruntled. Fast-forward a few days. I start the game back up and wait for almost 40 minutes while a 50 MB update is downloaded. As I look at the file names, I realize that Hibernia?s been added. But I decide to play a ?straight? character and pick a warrior from Midgard. Soon enough, I?m slaughtering defenseless bears and spiders, all in the name of experience. I?m set on a few simple quests -- collect five claws, group, and then get something from a spider, deliver a letter -- but nothing particularly pressing. While I can see how the game could become addictive, the long walks between the locations dull my senses. Sure, the game?s pretty, but when you have to spend five minutes going between two areas, it seems a little rote. After gaining a few levels with Hrothgar, I decided to start playing with the aforementioned Hibernian elven mage. And here is where the addiction began. The spells are neat -- I start with one that?s a ranged attack and one that seems to shield me. I don?t realize for a while that the shield lasts a long time, and end up casting it before each battle. Eh. I can only pick off the easy enemies, but the ranged attack lets me get a lot more hits in than would be otherwise possible. I start off on the annoying first quest where I have to talk to three different people, basically forcing me to ping-pong between far-apart townships. Walking between them is a drag. But then I gain the higher level version of the ranged attack and a new spell that damages enemies who attack me. Suddenly, I can fight a number of the foes that were bothering me before. And then the hours simply slip away. I played for two, three hours straight, doing nothing but hacking through enemies. I completed the first quest, did the second trivial one, and started getting my butt kicked by rat-boys because of my weak solo talents. Argh. Dark Age of Camelot is a MMORPG with some twists. Sure, the lower levels are pretty much the same as any, I?d imagine -- boost levels, gain skills, buy armor. But the game promises a sort of meta-game, where the three realms fight each other for a number of relics. Player versus player is rewarded, but doesn?t devastate the loser. The world is gigantic and growing all the time. The graphics are sharp, if a little blocky, and the engine has only a few weird issues. Of course, I?m not participating in any meta-game yet. I?m just happy to be zapping wolves and the occasional rat-boy. The game has pulled me in, and I have to force myself to get out. People talk about the EverQuest-killer, and I can?t honestly say that Dark Age is that, having never played the former. But I will say that Camelot has the same sort of magnetism that had me running on a MUD until six o?clock in the morning, trying to solve one last puzzle, get one more level. Almost 5 a.m. now. To sleep or to play some more? -Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon