With the non-disclosure agreement lifted for the upcoming Sony Online Entertainment game Wizardry Online, here are our beta impressions.
We both have nothing positive to say about the experience, and we tried the game several times. Graphics are outdated, characters move like they have iron rods for spines and limbs, white text to advance the story in script floating over graphics is so last century, and the user interface is atrocious. Honestly, we wanted to like this game. There are very few “hardcore” games out there and Wizardry was promising to be one, but the first torturous ten minutes of game-play killed any future possibility of perma-death.
Cold hard truth, is that while Sony is a Japanese company, SOE is presenting a Japanese game to a Western market and failing miserably. Personally, I’m not going to sit through scrolling text, that looks like it belongs on a handheld gaming device mind you, which I have no ability to hurry said text or back out of when attacked. Character movements are so stiff and wooden, they are physically painful to watch. The user interface is too small, difficult to figure out, and the fact you can’t even get to the user interface until AFTER those first painful five to ten minutes is downright annoying and frustrating.
I will freely admit that neither of us made it past arriving in that first village. I couldn’t log out fast enough every time I managed to get that far. We want to play a video game, be immersed in the world; not stumble through tedious text scripting, stiff characters, and frustrating interfaces. The game already has a rabid fan base which does not tolerate discussion of problems within the game.
While I believe SOE has the right intention trying to bring back old school, “hard core” gaming, this is a rush job and not ready for the Western market.
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