'Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles'
By: Mythic Entertainment
(Windows 98 + Me + XP / ASIN: B000068RUA / $28.99)
Features:This is an expansion pack for 'Dark Age of Camelot'
and features a whole new graphical engine with spectacular new visual effects. Three new Island continents in which to explore and adventure (one per realm) and one new player race per Realm (three total) with two new player classes per Realm (six total). Not to mention an all new ambient music soundtrack and a revamped user interface !
Description:'Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles' is the first expansion pack available for 'Dark Age of Camelot' players. It extends the story of the original game with new character classes, races, weapons, armor, outfits, monsters, advanced monster encounters, and a ton of other additions. There are three new continents to explore--displayed in an all-new state-of-the-art graphics engine that makes the game look as advanced as any on the market.
Verdict:First of all this game rocks ! There are 3 diverse realms, or countries you can call your home. Once you've chosen that, you can choose between many variety of races, and professeions. You fight monsters in the typical 'hack and slash' manner to gain levels and new skills, but you can also go on quests for such experience. Thats nothing uncommon to a game like this. What sets this one apart is RvR. Realm versus realm combat. Each of the 3 realms group together with fellow guildmates, and friends alike, to go on massive (I've seen 200 live people in a raid or more) raids to try to besiege and take realm keeps. These are keeps in a designated area known as the Frontier, or no mans land. Here you fight epic sized battles with sometimes as many as 200 people on each side, or on all 3 sides, fighting over control of keeps. There are also relics that can be taken from these keeps giving bonuses to the whole realm that owns them so long as they do. When you make a kill in RvR you don't gain experience, or lose it when you die; but you gain 'realm points'. When these are enough, you gain a realm rank which gives you points to spend on special "realm skills" which generally are really cool. These skills make it a benifit to participate in RvR, but no one would be required to do it. Unlike other games where you have 1v1 (or 3v1 as I've seen) PvP style, that quickly gets old when you can't turn it back off until some timer wears down. Over all this game really does a great job, it will be interesting to see how the expansion changes this already exellent game.
'Speed' Geist