LAGWAR | GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  If that’s true then WoW should be blushing red right now, because Alganon is a straight copy of WoW with very little in the way of novel gameplay or mechanics to offer MMO players.  If you think I cut straight to the chase in this article, you’re right.  If you want a more in-depth accounting of my experience playing Alganon, read on.

Before I start this off I want to officially acknowledge that I played this game up to level 10 and the game is just now entering the open beta period, so this isn’t the final picture of Alganon but I definitely think it is a pretty accurate first impression.  Basically I broke up my critique of the game into a few sections below.  I gave Alganon a grade in each section, and for the record a “C” is average for MMO’s.

Character creation: (D) The character creation screen is the first part of the game you get to see with most MMO’s and unfortunately Alganon’s does little to impress.  As will become common throughout this review I will simply state that if you have seen WoW’s character creation screen, then you have seen Alganon’s.  Alganon seems to directly copy WoW’s character creation screen down to the layout.  I think that character creation is one of WoW’s weaker points and Alganon does nothing to improve this straight rip-off of WoW.  As the closed beta ended the character creation screen didn’t even seem to work properly as I was forced to change classes for my characters facial features to update each time I changed them.

Graphics:  (F) The second thing you notice after entering Alganon is that this game looks like it was put together 8 years ago.  For a game that has not been released the graphics are horribly out of date.  WoW, Warhammer, Everquest II, LOTRO, all these games sport vastly better graphics than what you will encounter in Alganon.  I will be the first to admit that great mechanics and gameplay can make up for a lot in the way of graphics but…

The graphics don't exactly overwhelm you...

Game mechanics:  (D) …the game mechanics of Alganon aren’t that great either.  The game mechanics are nearly identical to those of WoW, but with substantially less polish.  There is very little new here to get excited about either.  You will notice that your character learns new “actions” every two levels and can specialize their actions with “ability points” that are arranged in trees.  As it turns out the actions are identical to WoW’s abilities.  If you play a “soldier” (one of three classes currently available to play) and are familiar with a warrior in WoW you can match up the abilities easily.  There is a copy of heroic strike and shield slam that you start the game with.  As you level you can place points in your “ability tree” – another straight copy from WoW’s talent trees.  I could compare features forever, suffice it to say, they are all the same.

"The talent trees in Alganon are totally different - they go from the bottom up"

The only two unique features Alganon boasts are the study and background systems.  The study system allows you to passively study a particular talent, such as melee combat or ranged attack that once learned provides the character with a passive buff.  While this is a new system, I didn’t find it particularly compelling as you can basically log your character on, go AFK, and learn skills.  Not exactly innovative gameplay.  Basically you can start a new character at level 1 and have him sit there for a month and train up skills without ever setting foot outside the starter zone.  The background system is a little more original.  When you create a character you choose a background that will affect future quests, chat channels, and merchants that your character has access to.  Basically the background system is another way of specializing your character.  Unfortunately these additions do little to salvage fairly uninspiring game mechanics.

The study system allows you to customize your character...even while afk

UI:  (B?) What do you give a carbon copy of WoW’s interface, but with some of the newer features missing?  The interface is OK, but again it’s a straight copy of WoW, with no new added features.  Even the hotkeys are mapped identically to WoW.  “Q” opens your quest log, “C” opens your character pane (which by the way has character, reputation, and skill tabs – just like WoW), and alt-Z makes the UI vanish.  I guess the plus side here is that if you play WoW, you already know all the hotkeys in Alganon.

Twins separated by quality

Gameplay:  (C) Once again a straight copy of WoW, it just seems to be a little buggier.  It is sometimes tough to click on enemies to engage them.  Loot drops from corpses like WoW, unless a special item is dropped by the mob, in which case a treasure chest falls (literally) from the sky and plops down next to the mob for you to open.  Strange, I guess that mob had a treasure chest a balloon and when I killed him the balloon popped?  Quests generally involve collecting items that drop off mobs.  Pretty standard fare overall.

Sound:  (B) Although I am giving it a B, I give the sound in the game a slight edge over the blatantly copied UI and name it the best feature of the game.  The music playing in the background is actually original (which makes about one thing) and is fairly good.  Likewise the sound effects are pretty reasonable.  Environmental noises help bolster the surroundings of the game marred by subpar graphics.

Overall:  (D) In the end Alganon has little to offer MMO players.  If you are sick of WoW, Alganon has no really inspiring game mechanics or innovative gameplay to offer.  If you like WoW, this game is pretty much a subpar copy of it, and you will be much happier staying in Azeroth.