Titans Quest and Age of Conan just made a baby, and it’s called Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. So is the game any good? The gaming community has been avidly following Gods & Heroes for a couple of years now. It was certainly an interesting-looking title, but was it really one to follow? The short answer is no. Firstly, the game feels very dated. I don’t just mean by MMO standards either, but rather the game as a whole.

The first thing you might notice after logging in is the graphics. I’m not usually one to complain about a game’s visuals, but if the visuals aren’t even functional, then I’m going to have an issue. The graphics feel old, and what I mean when I say this is that there isn’t enough color in the world, the environments feel bland, the characters look very goofy, the textures appear blurry and the lighting is all around non-existent. Now if these points didn’t hurt the game enough, often times the graphics will bug out with texturing popping, light flickering, shadow clipping (through other objects) and broken animations.

I believe in order to survive in the MMO market you need to either bring something new and exciting to the table, or follow the traditional MMO pattern but do it VERY well. One example of the latter would be the recently released RIFT. They attempted to change things up with dynamic events but kept the traditional MMO structure. Gods & Heroes also endeavors to keep the basic structure but fails on the first impression. The bottom line is that Gods & Heroes needed to keep their graphics up to date in order to maintain that lasting appeal.

Just to clear things up before moving on. No, I do not think a game has to be pretty in order to be good.But the game DOES have to support itself with solid gameplay which Gods & Heroes does not. The game gives you the typical option to play one of six classes (two of which are currently locked). Each class is pretty standard. You have your warriors, healers, magic users and rouge classes. I played as the melee DPS class because I like to wear big armor and deal serious damage. I also rolled a secondary mystic class, which acts as the general spell caster. After you choose your desired class, you can then customize their facial features and choose an alliance. Neither alliance is really good nor bad, but depending on which one you choose you will receive slightly different perks and, more importantly, a unique list of companion characters you can acquire. More on this later.

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Unless you’re a big D&D fan, or have stumbled upon the past Neverwinter Nights games, many of you might not have heard of the upcoming Cryptic title “Neverwinter”.  Yes this game is based off of the D&D rule set, but that doesn’t mean it should be overlooked.  In fact, the game appears to have a lot to look forward to judging by its new trailer.  As of right now the official site is up and running, so feel free to check it out here!  Not much is known about the upcoming title, besides the fact that it will be heavily focused around co-op.  We’re not even 100% sure it’s a full blown MMO yet!  Will this game be open world? Or will it have a central HUB world for players to connect?  Hopefully we will learn more by the end of the week.

What better way to kick off an epic E3 news week than with a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer.  Not only is it a trailer, but the game’s intro cinematic to be exact.   This new video shows off a large sith invasion taking back their ancient home planet from the jedi’s control.  The video features a member of each republic class fighting against the sith attack.  Personally after watching this clip, I only find myself wanting to see more of the smuggler class.  I wasn’t really sure up until this point, but come on, who doesn’t want to play as a badass Marcus Fenix smuggler.

Check out the E3 SWTOR intro trailer below.

Pockie Ninja has just extended two of it’s in-game events by popular demand. The ” New Challenge in Las Noches” and “Level-Up” events that were due to close at the end of May, have now been given extensions to June 15th and June 30th respectively.  For those who choose to participate in these events will be rewarded with a whole basket of in-game goodies.  Not only that, but if you truly believe you are a ninja master, you can make an attempt to earn the “luxurious” in-game gifts.  How does one go about earning these gifts you ask?  NGames tells us how!

The New Challenge in Las Noches event represents the pinnacle of Pockie Ninja’s martial arts mastery, challenging players to pass level 160 in the Las Noches building – a huge tower with increasingly difficult challenges awaiting users on every level/floor. Until June 15th, the first 3 players to reach level 160 on each server will be giving luxurious in-game gifts

Meanwhile, players will be rewarded simply for enjoying the Naruto/Bleach-inspired brawler, with prizes set to be handed out to everyone reaching level 70+ before June 30th.

Click here to head on over to the official site and jump into the action!

With yesterday’s launch of the Karma Online: Prisoners of The Dead beta homepage, players can expect to get their zombie killing weapons ready for June 7th.  With the beta launching just days away (next Tuesday), most players will want to jump into the game almost immediately.  For those who like to be well prepared, game publisher Joymax has your back by allowing everyone to pre-download the game client as of now!

For those who are not sure as to what to expect from this closed beta, Joymax sends this message to it’s players.

“We plan on a short but fruitful closed beta, and definitely look forward to player feedback,” said Joymax CEO, Nam-chul Kim. “It is a rare opportunity for FPS fans to dive into our complex system as they bond over taking out enemies and zombies and hopefully build strong relationships that will turn into clans as we lead into Open Beta andlaunch!”

The Closed beta will run from the 7th to the 21st, which gives you all a two week window of zombie blasting mayhem.  For those looking for a little extra fun in their Karma Online: Prisoners of The Dead Beta, head over to Joymax portal and register an account.  After you’ve registered, log into the beta to claim your Golden VT40 Bayonet.  Better hurry though, cause this is one of those limited time offer deals!

I think it’s safe to say that after my recent trip to California, I’ve officially had my life’s filling of 50 year old, over weight gnomes.  If you’re completely unaware of what this weekend meant for gamers then maybe you shouldn’t even concern yourself with the images that are posted below.  This weekend was all about BlizzCon, hosted at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.  This was my first trip to BlizzCon, and California to boot.  Not knowing what to expect, I was completely blown away by the number and quality level of the World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft cosplayer outfits.  I witnessed things from sexy punk trolls, to cows being beaten to death by a Zerg rush.  Not only that, but you will literally be blown away by some of the detail put into these outfits, it’s absolutely astonishing.  Buts that’s enough of this! Why bother listening to me tell you how awesome it was, when you can just see it for yourself?  Scroll down to check out our awesome BlizzCon cosplay gallery!

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Everyone’s favorite character Sieghart has received a new bad ass skill tree in the popular MMO brawler; Grand Chase.  Seighart’s new skills are available to use right now, along with prize giveaways and brand new missions!  This player has 10 brand new skills for players to use in their monster killing escapades, and to celebrate all of this, Ntreev is currently giving everyone the chance to log in and receive special 14 day signboard items!  Not only will players receive these cool items but everyone in game will also be given random buffs such as attack & defense +10%!  Players may also partake in the new event mission, that will reward you with a free Skill Point Reset Card on completion.

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EstSoft has recently announced that Cabal’s latest free expansion will soon be available.  The new add-on is entitled Episode IV: Porta Inferno.  Sounds scary right?  Well It should be, considering this next update will throw you head first into HELL!  This new episode will be available later this month in Europe and the United States.  Hopefully this new update will bring back some old Cabal players and perhaps attract some new ones. But for all those hardcore cabal fans that just love to grind their hearts out, there is definitely something here for you.  The level cap for instance is being increased from 170 to 180.  You will also have a wide variety of new skills to play with, and use them all within a brand new hunting ground.  If you’re truly daring you can take your adventures into the depths of Hell themselves to do battle with menacing creatures and massive outdoor bosses!

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Gamigo is finally back at work after their fun at Gamescom, and boy oh boy was it ever a busy week.  The Gamigo booth was swarmed with players from around the world just itching to try out some of their new titles.  Gamigo was very pleased to see this kind of attention, but was even more satisfied after seeing the mass crowd lined up to play Black Prophecy.  This is Gamigo’s latest baby and the development team has stated that they are very proud of it.  Black Prophecy was nominated for three different awards at Gamescom and was lucky enough to actually take home the “Best of Gamescom” award in the “free to play” category.  That is an outstanding achievement for everyone that has been working on the game,  and the development team themselves have said that they finally feel their hard work has paid off.

Good on ya guys! We all congratulate you on your award and look forward to seeing more news on Black Prophecy in the future.  Keep it up Gamigo, your almost there!

For all the MMO news you need to know and more, follow us at MMOCrunch.com

Real Time Worlds brings us all another brand new APB update that plans to cover a whole lot of everything!  This new patch promises to fix many more bugs within the game, as well as perfecting some balancing issues and even adding an advanced graphics option.  That all sounds nice indeed, but what about the main update featured in this patch?  Well of course they gotta have one.  This time around it’s a brand new addition call “the ready system”.  This new ready system stops the group leader from starting your gang into a mission prematurely.  This means that if your group wants to partake in a mission objective, every player must hit “o” to signal that they are ready.  Once everyone in the party is ready, then you will all be able to start your mission. So everyone hop onto All Points Bulletin right now to download this monster update and jump into the action.

Fortunately for us, that ‘s not nearly everything that’s getting patched.  For the full patch notes click here, and for more MMO news and updates, remember to follow us at MMOCrunch.com