Archlord Review

By Alec Meer Published 2 November, 2006

Lordy.

Version tested: PC

I'm killing cubes of jelly. Dozens and dozens of cubes of jelly. They didn't attack me; I just went for them, because someone told me to. Fortunately for cube sympathisers, new ones appear more quickly than I can murder them - I would put this down to some weird asexual amoeba reproduction, but the trouble is the deer are doing the same. And, frankly, I don't even want to think about how the floating eyeballs breed.

Hitting cubes of jelly with a magic stick should be kind of hilarious, but it really isn't. I am not having fun. So far, Archlord is exactly like what people who don't play MMORPGs think MMORPGs are like. The only thing that keeps me going in any way is the knowledge that in five levels' time (which means about 900 cubes of jelly slain), I'll finally be able to get a new weapon. With this, I'll be able to kill cubes of jelly slightly faster, though still primarily by pressing '3' and waiting. If I wanted a bit of a break from killing cubes of jelly, there's someone over there (also killing cubes of jelly) who looks almost exactly the same as me. They'll continue looking the same as me until one of us hits a certain level, at which point we'll be allowed to buy new armour. Of course, everyone else will look exactly the same again once they hit that level, even if their chosen new armour has some minor stat differences. If I so desired, I could go and hit these eerie clones, but I don't really want to. They're surely as unhappy as I am right now, so it'd be really mean to go and kill them.

Oh - one other thing keeps me going. If you move the camera juuuuust so, you can see up my generic anime character's generic anime skirt. The blurred, stretched textures for her underwear are so cryingly awful that it looks very much as though she's wearing crotchless panties with unkempt pubic hair sticking out of each side. This is not, I must state, in any way erotic, but it is consistently hilarious, and the most entertaining element of Archlord's deeply uninteresting world. Such an oversight is also a sure sign that this is just a mechanical process with something crudely resembling a game slapped on top.

A few more cubes of jelly die. The part of my brain that's still conscious idly notes that the red ones take slightly longer to defeat than the green ones. Then, on the horizon, a Gnoll. It's got an animation and everything. Woo! I start hitting it. Despite it being the same level as this sex shop-attired elf-thing with rabbit ears I'm playing as, it kills me almost immediately. For the first time in five hours of hitting cubes of jelly and things that are essentially cubes of jelly but look different, it's apparent that I might need to group with another player.

'Archlord' Screenshot jelly

A cube of jelly, yesterday. I call it 'Cubey.'

This is a problem for four reasons.

  1. There is no way to distinguish the beasts that mean insta-death from the normal ones, other than learning the names if I don't want to get killed and then run for ten minutes (or fork out a small fortune for a portal) back to where I was. The giant multi-armed snake women, for instance, are as weak as kittens - as are Gnoll Warriors, which unfortunately look identical to the Gnoll Soldiers, which is the type that kills in seconds.
  2. There are almost no other players around. Most of those that are seem to be simply standing still. The people controlling them might well be dead. I don't blame them.
  3. The only players I have heard from over the general chat channel have simply typed "NEED REZZ ORB" every quarter of an hour or so, with no sign of a response. I'm not totally sure I want to talk to them. I'm not totally sure, in fact, that they're not cubes of jelly themselves.
  4. What if the other player kills me instead of groups with me?

I choose an alternative option. I go and kill hundreds more cubes of jelly, deer, moths and floating eyeballs until I'm a bit stronger. Until I'm a full three levels higher than the Gnoll, in fact, with a couple of new spells in my arsenal and a magic crystal added to my magic stick that probably does some sort of fire damage, but I'm not sure because all it says is 'Fire Elemental Stone +3'. Just for good measure, I also drink a potion that temporarily turns me into a giant spider.

The Gnoll kills me in under two seconds.

'Archlord' Screenshot vampires

Vampires don't do anything ostensibly vampiric.

I lose three per cent of my XP, and take ten more minutes to run back to my hairy nemesis. Initially, I'd presumed I was up against some sort of boss, but now I notice that beyond the Gnoll are dozens more Gnolls, all the same level, in the same pose, each flagged up as green (the universal MMO mob colour for mostly harmless), and, as harsh experience and a wasted giant spider potion has taught me, each and every one of them meaning near-instantaneous death. I turn to face the other way. There's a red cube of jelly waiting there. I could almost swear it winks at me. I sigh, and press '3' to attack.

Time passes.

Slowly.

I'm many levels higher. I have a better stick to hit things with, and my clothes are now red instead of blue. I also have a pet big fire demon, instead of the previous useless water imp thing. I eventually killed that Gnoll, but only once I was four levels higher than it and had some slightly better stats, mostly thanks to a magic necklace dropped by a cube of jelly. I've been all over the map, seen far too many clusters of empty buildings, devoid of people but often with new, bigger monsters - vampires, wolves, tree demons and, best of all, blue cubes of jelly. Some are easy to kill, some are like that deadly Gnoll. Trial and fatal error is the only way to learn. In any case, all of them wait in place to be killed, then respawn, then wait again. Atrocious controls have gotten me stuck on scenery time and again, the entire game world jumping crazily as it tries to work out how to make me walk through the tree my foot is almost touching. Not even the crotchless panties make me laugh any more.

'Archlord' Screenshot exciting

Looks exciting, doesn't it? Yeah, about that...

A few trips to PvP battlegrounds, intended as a break from the grind, have turned up only empty arenas with the occasional mad-tough AI bat flitting about. I'm informed that, like Codemasters' other recent foray into localising Korean massively multiplayer grind 'em ups, RF Online, there is more enjoyment to be had once the PvP really kicks in at the higher levels. There are castle sieges, which sound exciting - but only the most dedicated guilds (and they do exist, clearly possessing far more spare time than sense) will ever see these, having earned the right, from near-constant play, to try and seize a stronghold from a rival group. If you're not prepared to give yourself to this game utterly, then you'll simply never see any of this. In other words, it's back to the cubes of jelly for you.

There's much I haven't mentioned (for instance crafting, auction houses, mounts, kill, collect and errand quests, socketed items - all to be found in other, better MMOs, and all horribly clunky here), but none of it honestly affects the overall experience of Archlord. Regardless of it being very hard to picture how its tedious, clumsy mechanics could possibly evolve into something fluid and entertaining, any game that puts you through a good 15 or 20 hours of overwhelming despair to get to even a chance of something worthwhile - which the server-wide near-silence suggests actually isn't, and certainly won't be until if and when there are enough players to populate large-scale tussles - is a failure. If you want an online fantasy game that puts PvP before character and customisation, then there is absolutely no reason to play this over the dramatically superior Guild Wars: Nightfall, also out this month. Like this, its world design and character self-expression is short on charm, but GW does present its best element, the fast and exciting player fights, as an immediately available option, and without Archlord's insult of a subscription fee. If you want an online fantasy game that lets you repeatedly beat up animals and collect loot, there's absolutely no reason to play this over the dramatically superior World of Warcraft. It's incredibly pretty, there's loads to see and do, and plenty of scope to make a unique-feeling character. Neither Guild Wars nor World of Warcraft have an interface that's like using Windows 95 with a migraine. There are also no cubes of jelly.

Somewhere, someone on this ghost world is an Archlord. Briefly blessed with increased power and size, the ability to change the economy and weather, and even a dragon to ride on, they are the most successful player on their server. It's their reward for the hundreds of hours they've put in, the tens of thousands of NPCs and players they've slain. It's a temporary trophy only the most insane grinders will ever chase, and it's supposed to be the game's unique selling point. Unless I sacrifice almost everything else in my life to play this hour in and hour out, there's more chance of my marrying a magic cube of jelly than there is my becoming Archlord. Frankly, I'd also rather marry a magic cube of jelly than have to play this game for that long.

4 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Alec.

About Alec Meer

A 10-year veteran of scribbling about video games, Alec primarily writes for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, but given any opportunity he will escape his keyboard and mouse ghetto to write about any and all formats.

Read more articles from Alec by visiting the Alec Meer archive page.

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Comments (52) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • #1 5 years ago

    4 is just slightly below average, not bad then!

  • brainbird #2 5 years ago

    I keep reading this as Arschloch.

  • SeesThroughAll #3 5 years ago

    Great review. Crap game.

  • PearOfAnguish #4 5 years ago

    The Ultima Online 9th Anniversary collection is out in the US soon, includes all the expansions. Good chance to catch up on that if you missed it first time round.

  • wattoo #5 5 years ago

    [link url=http://www.progressques t.com/
    ]http://www.progressques t.com/
    [/link]

  • Darkedge #6 5 years ago

    just as rubbish as I expected.

    I disagree that Guild Wars has "world design and character self-expression is short on charm" it's better than that saccharine sickly shite bad cartoon look of WoW ffs. it's probably the best looking fun MMO around. Nightfall takes it so much further.
    Almost criminal that NCsoft don't charge a fee.

    Isn't Archlord a free mmo in Korea anyway? What sort of stunt are Codemasters trying to pulll..

  • jellyhead #7 5 years ago

    / is glad he's not a cube of jelly just a jellyhead.

  • Laserbream #8 5 years ago

    Incredible, this makes The Matrix Online seem attractive. Many thanks for suffering on our behalf, noble reviewer!

  • rinoaMW #9 5 years ago

    I agree with Darkedge - GW's world is far more beautiful than WoW. In regards to the review, Im surprised this even got a 4. i played the beta for like a day, and felt ripped off that i spent £1.99 on the pre-order box. I feel sorry for the poor ppl that spashed out £30 for it and a monthly sub on top of that to boot.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 12:28

  • GamerAddict #10 5 years ago

    I said sometime ago that I couldn't believe that Codemasters were venturing into the MMO market when WoW, Guild Wars and Everquest already dominated, followed by the likes of SW Galaxies and Final Fantasy........is there really room for yet another MMO?! It'd have to be something pretty bloody special in order to take even a thin slice of the MMO pie at the moment........and by the sounds of the review (and I only actually read the conclusion bit) it sounds like Codies have failed miserably, YET AGAIN!!!!

  • Clive_Dunn #11 5 years ago

    Somtimes I think being a games reviewer would be my dream job. However games like this would force me to turn the PC off after 15 mins and write a 3 word review along the lines of "SHIT, SHIT,SHIT".

    /takes another month off the Codemasters life expectancy chart. Wobbles, jelly like, in satisfaction.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 12:36

  • gaijin #12 5 years ago

    it's funny, I remembered the preview of this on EG earlier as being quite positive, and wondered what had gone wrong. Then I just re-read it, and realised that it sounded shit then too.

  • Zerimski #13 5 years ago

    After reading the review, I was expecting something a little lower than a 4. However, I was expecting nothing more from the game.

  • YoJimbo #14 5 years ago

    It might aswell be called Jelly Slayer....sounds and looks pretty damn awful, but then that doesn't surprise me tbh

  • YoJimbo #15 5 years ago

    Although...didn't RF Online suck ass aswell? I can see a bit of a trend starting here ;)

  • Dizzy #16 5 years ago

    These Korean MMORPGs cater to very specific players who like extreme PvP and don't mind grinding like crazy. Not recommended for sane people.

  • Bonzrat #17 5 years ago

    That's precisely why I scored it 4, not lower. There is indeed a certain caste of people who are going to be totally happy with this wretched thing despite its total lack of charm, because all they want to do is grind and PK. As regards the sanity of such people, I couldn't possibly comment...

    - Alec

  • linkster #18 5 years ago

    "/takes another month off the Codemasters life expectancy chart. Wobbles, jelly like, in satisfaction. "

    that makes you happy?

  • Dizzy #19 5 years ago

    ""/takes another month off the Codemasters life expectancy chart"

    To be honest I think Codemasters have a low investement in these games (after all they just translate them and run a few servers) and they probably have a good enough user base of interested players here in Europe to make them some money. Like I said before, there *are* people who really prefer this kind of game instead of a carebear WoW. One of my buddies quit WoW because it is too soft and not rewarding for extreme PvP-ers.
    Edited by 2 at 02/11/06 @ 13:43

  • AHiFi #20 5 years ago

    Well, thanks for that review. At one point I was interested by the concept - but I'll stick to WoW. If SOE decided to just somehow roll Galaxies all the way back to pre-CU, then I'd be back playing that. ='[

  • Yeevle #21 5 years ago

    All MMORPG's are like this. Waste of money and time.

  • vane101 #22 5 years ago

    "I said sometime ago that I couldn't believe that Codemasters were venturing into the MMO market when WoW, Guild Wars and Everquest already dominated, followed by the likes of SW Galaxies and Final Fantasy........is there really room for yet another MMO?!"

    Well we've got a lot more coming and some potential big hitters as well - Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Vanguard (from ex-Everquest people), Star Trek Online, Star Gate Online, various pirates games and countless others. With games like these which will attract the hardcore, as well as the casual nmasses, because of their probable high popularity, there will be no room for the poorly thought out Korean MMORPGs in the west.

  • vane101 #23 5 years ago

    So's life ultimately Yeevle!

    Forgot to mention that Everquest 2 has cubes of jelly - but not so many.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 13:51

  • El_MUERkO #24 5 years ago

    A bloke I met in Midmotheringhay
    Was half an orc and half...can't say
    A cask he tapped and our flagons filled
    And singing proud his mead we swilled!

    A lad met I last Mostmotheringrath
    Was half an orc and orc by half
    A cask he stove and our flagons topped
    And singing loud his mead we quaffed!

  • jimbob101 #25 5 years ago

    Hooray for screenshots that show the game as it's played. Now if only this was the norm.

  • KillerMonkey #26 5 years ago

    I demand screenshots of crotchless panties!

  • TwistidChimp #27 5 years ago

    Amazed it got a 4 after that review :) Was excpecting a 2 or a 3 at best.

  • Azazel #28 5 years ago

    Ghey-Lord

    Heh, on another note: play Guild Wars, it is plum.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 14:18

  • BrokenSymmetry #29 5 years ago

    And when is the Guild Wars: Nightfall review coming? The game has been out a week...

  • wayn3h #30 5 years ago

    Nightfall hardly needs reviewing.. You should all own it anyway ;).

    GW is by far my favourite game in it's class. Especially where competitive PvP is concerned, there is no better MMO in that regard. The player customisation is pretty decent and the PvE in GW:NF is largely improved over it's predecessors.

  • Azazel #31 5 years ago

    Yeah, I second that...

    Have been playing it solidly since it came out and liking it very much so far. I never bothered with Factions because I didn't believe it was offering me enough new stuff and I still had a lot of play left in the Prophecies Campaign at the time.

    What I like about this one though firstly is the heroes. They add a lot of new interest for me on the PvE side of things. Being able to kit them out with their own runes/weapons whatever has prompted me to start putting many more hours in trying to unlock skills and stuff for them. A few problems are that the AI doesn't seem to handle maintained enchantments - they will only cast these on themselves. There is a work around though in that you can disable these skills at any time so that only you can manually order them to use them... Bit fiddly and it take a bit getting used to operating more than one skill bar at once :) Sometimes feels like playing Baldur's Gate without a pause button :)

    Oh and the new campaign is ace as well. I've found a new green weapon already :D

  • President_Weasel #32 5 years ago

    Codies did DDO as well, or at least were involved in it in some way - there were about 6 company names on the loading screen on that one. Considering the saddening lack of content in that one and the way it pretty much died on its arse, I'm surprised they're launching not one but 2 more MMORGS. I'm yet another of those people that sincerely doubt there's room for another game in the market - but maybe they are hoping to cash in on an expected wave of people who get bored with WoW?
    I don't know how many people for whom WoW was their first MMORG would be interested in a more traditional 'horribly painful dull grind' game though - even though I cut my teeth on Everquest, now I've tasted the brightly coloured delights of WoW I am not sure I could go back.

  • vane101 #33 5 years ago

    I'm surprised people seem to think there's no more room in the market for other MMORPGs. Just take a look at the forums for Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan to see the keenness on these games.

    Lord of the Rings will undoubtedly be massive and will take away people from other games and bring in new ones to the genre. Having said that there probably is too many people chasing the limited sized cake.

  • gkscotty #34 5 years ago

    I picked this up on a complete whim a few weeks ago. Since I was visiting a friend at the time, we installed it on his computer and signed up. Accidently used the 7-day buddy code to sign up, but that shouldn't have been a problem.

    In the end, the only compliment we had for it was that the music in the installer was nice.

    Highlights included...

    logging in and finding out that you can't pick your gender (gender is set by race and class)
    encountering incredible lag in the newbie zone even though there were about four people around me
    having a character who did not animate at all until I restarted the game (a common problem according to the others in the newbie zone)
    doing the first quest and finding that there were not any more quests anywhere nearby, leaving nothing to do but... KILL RATS! (woohoo...)
    Killing enough rats to qualify for a change of armour for my Moon Elf hunter, and finding out that it's the most ridiculous and awful looking armour I've seen in any game ever.
    Moving on to kill deer in exactly the same way I killed rats.

    I logged out at about this time and my friend and I played CoH.

    When I returned home, I decided to install on my own computer and give the game another try. I put the disc in the DVD drive... and it started whirring, and whirring, and whirring...

    To cap it all, disc doesn't work in my computer so I can't try it again. I can't help but feel like I dodged a bullet. I'm just glad I never gave them my credit card details.

    Now all I need to do is get rid of this game. I've tried giving it away to three people so far but no-one will take it. Any suggestions for disposing of it?

  • Katsumoto #35 5 years ago

    I played the beta a month or so back. I assumed the cubes of jelly were placeholders. SURELY. But no.

    The developers for this game must be very cynical people

  • vane101 #36 5 years ago

    "Now all I need to do is get rid of this game. I've tried giving it away to three people so far but no-one will take it. Any suggestions for disposing of it?"

    The bin?!!! ;)

  • gnarl #37 5 years ago

    And they were making Dragon Kingdoms. Which looked good.

    And then they stopped. And made this.

  • KillerMonkey #38 5 years ago

    "Now all I need to do is get rid of this game. I've tried giving it away to three people so far but no-one will take it. Any suggestions for disposing of it?"

    The microwave oven should nicely dispose of optical discs :)

  • daedalus2 #39 5 years ago

    That was one of the funniest reviews I have read on Eurogamer. Well done, sir.

  • UncleLou #40 5 years ago

    Agreed, fantastic review. :D

  • AOFanboi #41 5 years ago

    Bought it, installed it, played it, gawked at the generic blandness, whimpered at the content-less-ness, thought to myself "it appears it is possible to release a MMO worse than Horizons", uninstalled it, resubscribed to WoW.

    Moon-elf boobs is the game's only saving grace.

  • Gurrah #42 5 years ago

    Quite the opposite of what they advertise on their website: "more fun, more happy" and that's a direct quote!
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 23:47

  • Cuke #43 5 years ago

    "thanks to a magic necklace dropped by a cube of jelly"

    lmao....

    Great review! :)

  • Abscido #44 5 years ago

    Excellent review, genuinely funny too.

  • Bonzrat #45 5 years ago

    One thing I didn't make totally clear in the review, incidentally (so many factors to deliver a brutal kicking to, so little space...), is that the endgame content (i.e. the Archlord and the castle stuff) isn't actually in the game yet - it's just promised for the near future. Though, given that I've since heard that Korean players have had the game for two years now, and they still don't have Archlords turned on, clearly it's not something anyone should hold their breath for...
    - Alec

  • dryden555 #46 5 years ago

    Totally 100% great review.

  • vane101 #47 5 years ago

    Ah so, Alec, the Archlord you thought was somewhere in the world, isn't! SO even the one cool thing about the game, where a powergamer can call himself the ultimate player on the server isn't there.

  • JcB #48 5 years ago

    This game isnt that bad at all, sure things doesnt look exactly like what u want it too, and ppl seem to have a problem with comparing one game to another, which is plain dumb, 2 diffrent publishers means 2 diffrent games, and 2 diffrent ideas of whatever that game looks like, storylike, whatever..

    I player wow since it got published, ye even beta, and just quitted, it isnt much diffrent, the thing i like about this one, is that u actually have to work for it to get far,
    while u just had to pick up a quest and do it then redo that again and again till u ding 60 in wow..

    Give it a try id say, find it quite fun already, and the chat system, atleast u dont meet tons of kids spamming about penises and alike in it :) and if u really wanna chat, then start a chat :)

    Anyway, its worth a try and i wouldnt recomment ppl not to try it just from this Review...

    And, if u dislike jelly's, pick orcs, there are jellies there, but not a massive population :p and btw, they are kinda cute, with a little skeleton sitting inside, poking you with a spear and a shield!! :D

  • darkbhudda #49 5 years ago

    I now have zero interest in becoming a game reviewer.

  • Manisthiswrong #50 4 years ago

    I hope you were intoxicated,drugged and/or have mental problems, I have to say on a 0 to 10 scale you get 1 for giving such good support to the theory of the human stupidity being bottomless.Nothing personal,but can you tell me did you actually know the purpose of a mmorpg? It's to make your character powerful,want pretty go play Barbie dress up.I'm not one to troll,however you can't tell me you weren't totally bought or have another excuse,this is the 2-nd worse review I've ever read, only Advent Rising game had a more unjustified,meaningless,proofless and humiliating to read(also i feel sad for you).Have a nice day :D!

  • DFawkes #51 3 years ago

    I have to say I actually quite like this. Though of the numbered list, that 3rd one is the most blatant. Not one person in chat can type. But I'm liking this more than Guild Wars at the monet, though I have a feeling I may fall out with this game when it gets too samey.

    EDIT: Having re-read the review, it's clear the reviewer hasn't understood some things, or somethings have been patched since then, since it's easy to tell the insta-kills from the rest now. Plus with all the extra content now, and it being better value for money, I recckon the reviewer would give it 4.5 now. That rounds up to 5.
    Edited by 1 at 01/12/08 @ 16:08

  • DFawkes #52 3 years ago

    To amend the avobe, it is a bit shit. 4/10, now I've had time to play a bit more. Fair review, but free game.

  • GuyNoir #53 3 years ago

    Bet its better than Darkfall Online. IGMC