RF Online Review

Don't you call me effeminate - look at the size of my big long sword.

• Me: Why are you all here?
• Me: You're standing still, doing nothing.
• Me: I'm here to set you free.
• Mathar: why?
• Me: Look what you've become.
• Me: Do you not want to run?
• Me: To be free?
• Hateman: preparing for the war?
• Me: People, there's a world outside of here.
• Me: You no longer have to be slaves.
• Me: This isn't life.
• Me: What are you fighting for?
• Me: You have been enslaved.
• Me: I weep for you all.
• Cerebrus: wat the f u catting about???!??!?

The first and most significant issue with RF's focus on these clan battles is that nobody in their right mind would want to play long enough to get there. From the opening moment problems tumble over you like a screwed-up waterfall. First negotiate the shoddy log-in screen with its teeth-hurting sanctimonious music, and you're into the character selection screen. Madly translated gibberish might be trying to tell you the nature of the races, or how to change your washing machine to the 40 degree wash. Once you've picked between the tanky robots, magical elves, or mechanical midgets, you're then asked to pick a class. This time, rather than confuse you with Korenglish spluttering, you're protected by its offering absolutely no information whatsoever.

You too could visit exotic locations such as this endless, miserable desert.

There then comes a tutorial that will have you tearing out the hairs on your head, legs, back and bum, as it patronises you with painstaking, unskippable instructions as to how to click on a button with a mouse, but not anything of what on earth you're meant to be doing in the game.

And then you're dumped into the middle of your main base, instructions barked at you by a mysterious stranger (not actually barked though, but scrolled up agonisingly slowly in a window - a window that doesn't word wrap, such that li
nes break off as soon as the edge is re
ached, no concern given for sense), and no guidance whatsoever. Kill so many of these for this slightly obtuse reason.

I wandered away, disappointed that no one seemed able to listen. It was too late for them. With nothing else to do, I aimlessly attacked some local beasts. Attacking was automatic to me, my brain or hands barely involved, only having to concentrate on consuming health potions every four seconds. They cost so little that I buy a hundred at a time, and as no one in this world is able to heal, it's become our norm. Life is to be lost and regained in a perpetual cycle. Everything is perpetual here. War repeats like clockwork, aims never change. No one is free. I amble tiredly toward a cave entrance. But don't I recognise that robot over there?

Working in teams creates disadvantage. Only the last person to hit something gains credit for the kill, meaning that rather than killing twenty of something, now you have to kill at least twenty multiplied by the number in your team. More likely double that for accidentally being the person to take a beast down. And none of this is at all fun. The inadequately placed keys can't be remapped, and mouse control is counter-intuitive. Attacking things is tedious and uninvolved, and yet 90 per cent of the game's content. And worst, kills can be stolen by anyone who happens to wander along and deliver a final blow.

The sorry sight of slavery.

Draw breath... Locations are barren, and while impressively large and occasionally pretty, a horrendous trawl to traverse, hindered by dreadful maps that must be bought for ridiculous prices. Screen furniture cannot be resized, the chat window three lines high whenever you're not typing into it, and hence obscured with the incessant in-game notices. And the translation, as mentioned, is farcical. Pant, pant, pant.