Asheron's Call 2:
Fallen Kings

Disaster has struck Dereth—but now its peoples are emerging from the caves to reclaim their home

	Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings
	By Turbine/Microsoft
	PC
	MSRP: $49.99 plus $12.95 per month (first month free)

Review by A.M. Dellamonica

s sword-and-sorcery multiplayer online games go, the original Asheron's Call was a moderate success, never attracting as many players as Everquest, but nevertheless building a loyal following with an endlessly fascinating character-generation system, intriguing storylines and many superb quests. Now Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings hopes to capture the hearts of existing fantasy RPG fans and new players alike, promising better graphics, new monsters, bigger quests and new character design and player-versus-player combat options.

The core premises of the game are still the same: Fallen Kings can be played in first or third person, turning players loose on a vast and mostly ruined landscape. Right now, the towns familiar to players of the original, like Cragstone and Shoushi, are little more than rubble. This will change as play continues—towns can be rebuilt, forges and tool-making workshops restored. Beyond the towns are wilderness areas filled with monsters both large and small. Hunting the Dereth wildlands yields experience for character advancement, raw resources for crafting and—of course—plenty of excitement and gaming fun.

Unlike the original, which allowed only human player characters, Fallen Kings offers three PC races—humans and their former enemy races, Lugians and Tumeroks. Character generation is entirely based on skills chosen and developed in the game. There are no underlying statistics, like strength or willpower, to tweak—it's all in whether a player buys melee skills or magic spells. The crafting system for making weaponry, tools and armor is separated from combat, so that everyone can build their own equipment without taking a hit on their combat ability.

A Call that should be answered

Turbine has done an incredible job of retaining the feel of Asheron's Call while eliminating annoyances and creating new challenges. Its graphics are gorgeous—the detail and color of the terrain, monster animations, dungeon design and overall look of the game are unreal. Experience sharing through allegiances and fellowships is as efficient as ever, gently building player cooperation. Added to the old social system are three kingdoms: monarchies can align with Order, Good or Chaos, battling each other accordingly in selected areas of the continent or on dedicated player-versus-player servers. Fallen Kings is also friendly to those in the early stages of leveling—with the new craft system, a player can equip completely without needing a patron the minute they arrive in Dereth.

Another feature of this new and improved Asheron's Call is the extent to which life is player-controlled. Server divergence promises to be huge as towns get rebuilt and expanded on the various player worlds. There are virtually no non-player characters—no vendors, no trophy collectors—though quest-related characters remain. All trading takes place between individual gamers, and money is made through a process of reducing unusable loot to gold. Finally, the battle classes have been subtly balanced. Mages are less vulnerable, melees less indestructible. Archers and other missile weapon users are not quite the killing machines they once were.

Fallen Kings does have its imperfections—it is sometimes laggy, its conversation windows, despite tweaks in a recent patch, are still a little unwieldy, and some of its often-repeated tasks cannot be delegated to shortcut keys. However, Turbine has an excellent track record for making small fixes and addressing complaints with the system. Given the awesome experience this game offers, it can only be hoped that it draws a huge following.

A tremendous follow-up to the original and a great game in its own right. I was completely hooked within an hour. — A.M.D.

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