RUNESCAPE! (Runescape)

Member Name: acid vamp

Product:	Runescape
Date:	14/02/08 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: amazingly addictive gameplay,

Disadvantages: often gets boring, repetitive.

MY FIRST TIME.

having played 'runescape' on and off for just shy of about 4 years now, i've seen the game go through it's ups and downs. i fisrt began playing runescape when i stumbled upon the game accidentally one mediocre afternoon. i think i can surely say that that very afternoon was a life changing moment for me.


having never really played an rpg up until this point i was sceptical, as you can imagine, as to weather i should invest my time into this game, but from the first click on tutorial island (the tutorial level all players must complete before making their way into the vast world of runescape-as you can probably imagine it is set on an island.) i knew my addiction to this game would no know bounds. this game thus opened my infant eyes to the wonderful world of role-playing games, and for that i can only thank it.

THE GAME.

alas, after my touching tale of my personal discovery of the game, the literal breakdown of the game it's self:-
as a player, customisation of your player before entering the world of runescape is vital. head,hair,torso gender- every feature of your avitar can be customised to suit your own personal preferences. once your charactar has been brought to life in your own vision, your advnture begins!
runescape offers it;s members the choice to play for free, which is basically a very very ekongated demo, offering alot of fun skills and great gameplay, or to pay to play, offering to 'members' more weapons, areas, minigames, armour, everything.

FEATURES

an interesting feature of runescape over other online rpgs available at this point in time, is the option to raise skills that have next to no effect on other players, as attack or defense might-making your player deal mre damage to your foes or protecting you from deathblows from your enemies respectivly. one can in theory play the game without entering a single fight! such skills as smithing, mining wood cutting cooking and the newly introduced summoning skills offer players hours of skill levelling entertainment and plentiful rewards to be reaped from their efforts without the need to ever enter a combat situation.
a key feature of runescape, as i am sure many veterans will agree, is the hugely wide array of clothing, armour, masks, special event items (yo-yo's, easter eggs, rubber chicken etc) and weapons. not only will better weaponsand armour boost your stats in battle, but some looks pretty bad ass too! so for those not interested in hardxcore pwning of noobs of a 24 hour basis (although this has become much more difficult in recent times,due to frankly pathetic updates of late as i shall undoubtably cover later :)) can take refuge in customising their charactar to the max, with aid from money making skills.



minigames!

runescape offers it;s players a MASSIVE selection of minigames, my personal favourite being castle wars, a massivly multiplayer take on capture flag that will have you hooked for hours. (just one more round.)


on the whole, runescape has given me many many hunderedsof hours of amazing online play, during which time i have slayed my fair amount of mosters, traded billions of runescape gold (gp) and made a fair few friends, but this peice of RPG gold does not come without it's disadvantages.

DISADVANTAGES

due to 'real world trading'-trading of items or gold for actual real life money, jagex seems to have found it plausable to remove near all fun aspects of the game, with pking(player killing) gone and replaced with a lacluster sustitue in the form of a poor quality minigame (bounty hunter) and the introduction of balanced trades( all items have a set price, this price then cannot be exceeded by more than 3000 gp.) making merchanting impossible for one.
recent updates aside, runescape has always had issues with longlivety with myself. often i find myself bored by it's often repetetive gameplay-hence my inconsistant playing habbits. but, runescape is one of those games that will give you some slack on the addctive leash of doom for a while, only to reel you back in at the next oppertunity. once you start playing, you'llfind yourself immersed in the world of runescape for many a year to come.

SUMMARY

with hundereds more features i failed to mention, runescape amounts to a very playable online game, a must for RPG fans worldwide. if you can overlook the second rate graphics and enjoy the games content runescape will surely provide you with hours upon hours of nerdy fun.

Summary: offers hundereds of hours of addictive gameplay, not to everyones taste but a must play game.