[Guyver]

I decided to make a written review for all those people who like words. Shame on you! lol

To start off, we've all been waiting for this game for sometime now, but the game still needs some work. So don't read this as a final "decision" if you will.



In order to start the game client, I have to login on the Huxley website and click "Game Start". I found this as a pain since this doesn't work with firefox and internet explorer loads the site about as fast as a snail on a salt trail. Once all of that is done a pretty little client pops up, well designed and not too big. Only 3 buttons and right in the middle of the client is the play button. But before you can press ANY buttons the HackerShieldPRO has to load and this takes almost 2 minutes at times.

When you click the play button you get a small load time for the intro video. Once the video is done or you just press 'Escape', the server list comes up. I couldn't understand the server names so I just clicked the one at the top for the time being. Finally when I chose my server, it was time to make my first Huxley character. It slightly disappointing in the hair design portion. There were on average 5 to 6 hairdo's to pick from. All but 1 made you look normal-ish. When it came to the face customization, you can change the size of the chin, eyebrows, cheeks and more. The only shameful part though is that I never noticed a whole lot of people with the 'uniqueness' I was hoping for. Unless you are completely zoomed in on the screen, there's no other way to point out facial features. You can't change the height or build of the character either. Seeing an altereaver NOT on steroids would be a funny look I could live with.

So far the interface seems to work pretty smoothly. There's the inventory and license sheet. There doesn't seem to be a way to increase inventory slots. I'm assuming everyone has the same amount of bag space. I haven't ran out of space yet, so let's just leave that alone. As for the licenses, these are your specs. By the time you are level 50 (max), you should have atleast looked at the sheets. There are 3 kinds of licenses; weapon, vehicle, and bonuses. The weapon licenses that are available depend on the class you pick. which is a let down, I wanted to be a phantom with a rocket launcher. The vehicle licenses allow you to use bigger, badder types of the vehicle you want to major in. Would you like to specialize in buggies? Go ahead. Tanks? Be my guest! The bonus licenses are things like extra defense when in a group. Things like that. Little things that ALWAYS help.

Entering dungeons, instances, missions, etc is simply a matter of knowing where to run. If you press 'M' for map all the quest areas are shown which ruins the 'adventure' portion of the city. Once you get to the entrance of the quest area, you are prompted with 2 windows. Once window list any quest you need to have done in that area. When you double click the quest you want to do, the game loads the quest almost like a script for a movie. The quest area is loaded for THAT particular quest locking off certain areas and only spawning what the quest's guidelines have.This makes the quest feel more legit than just another thing to do like finding an item. For example. There is a quest zone I almost know like the back of my hand now, and every door is opened allowing me to search everywhere. But when I select a quest, the instance locks certain areas off, adds and minuses certain NPC's, and might add a few areas I've never seen. Of course this doesn't mean there aren't fetch item quest.

Speaking of instances, alot of people wonder how loot works. Well, after killing something it has a chance to drop something from it's loot table. You can tell it dropped something because a 3D model of the item pops out of it and lands on the ground. They are never that hard to spot for they are fairly large in size and glow a bright red. Easy enough. A little old hybrid isn't going to drop a super rare nuclear bomb launcher, but he may drop some trash you can sell to an NPC like his eyeball or something. If it is a peice of armor, the 3D model will be a really cool looking chest piece. If a weapon, a glowing red weapon. All you have to do to pick up the items is walk over them, no clicking or pressing of buttons required. This is very handy seeing as how the combat is fast paced at times.

Speaking of weapons, there is an NPC that does "Tune-Ups", with a little bit of cash and some required parts that drop from creatures and NPC's, he/she can upgrade your weapons damage and clip size. Sadly there is a chance of failure and she will BREAK your gun. Recently I found a rare level 17 machine gun to only have her break it in front of my eyes and now it's a lowly level 1 gun that can't even be sold to to other players for a good price. There's no reimbursement, no insurance. If she broke it, oh well. Now, If I gave you a gameboy and the screen was broken and you knew how to fix it. I supply a new screen AND a little cash for your trouble. Then you break the whole gameboy while trying to fix it, and you just tell me sorry??? NO! You are paying me back big time. If webzen at least made it downgrade a level instead of fully ruining it, I would have been satisfied. BUT seeing as how I upgraded my sniper rifle, and current machine gun 3 times each with no breaks - this seems a bit unfair.

As for armor, I'm level 14 and I haven't noticed a whole lot of differences in armor yet unless you are a different class. Everywhere you turn there are vendors that sell armor and it seems like if you have money - you'll get all the good gear. The same goes for skills, I have a phantom and I can only use skills for the phantom. Sadly there are only about 6 of them. This means I have to use the same ones for a long time and I don't think I'll ever get different ones. Of course higher ranked skills have longer effects that consume less energy, but it's not all that different.

When it comes to the AI (artificial intelligence) I am disappointed to say the least. Sure they may have programmed hybrids to determine when I'm going to fire my rifle so they can successfully dodge, but the second I stand on top a box, the beast just wiggles around like a moron having a seizure mixed with cocaine. This makes them hard to shoot and ruins the "hunter vs. prey" aspect of Hybrids. In all the videos we see, hundreds of hybrids are crawling on walls and biting peoples heads off. The most I've fought at one time is 4 hybrids and they didn't sneak up on me or anything. I can actually walk behind to a hybrid unstealthed, and it won't notice me until I touch it.

Health does not regenerate over time, but your armor does. This is extremely helpful, but the problem is, it acts like a second health bar. none of my health goes down until my armor is completely down. So as long as you keep your armor up- don't worry about health. As for ammo, through out the quest areas there are floating stationary canisters with a certain amount of uses. Once you touch it, your ammo is fully replenished for all weapons. So if you need to run for it, grab some ammo. Here comes the bad part - the canister charges replenishes after a small while. So say it had one use left, I use it, now there is no more uses. I come back later I can use it again. This ruins the whole "spare your ammo" idea unless it's your sniper rifle or rocket launcher.

Gameplay aside, let's go over the more cosmetic things of Huxley. The music, wonderful. Nothing says "kill hybrids" while a 20 man symphony plays for you in a dark hallway. The graphics for the cities and instances are extremely well done. For some reason though, the character models don't seem to 'fit in' with the surrounding worlds. Almost as if they were forced to be in a foreign area. That may explain why the starting area for Alternatives (Eleska) has a slight European feel and Alternatives feel a bit more Eastern.

More to come.