A Week In The Life: RIFT

Or: How I Learned to Hate the Genre But Love The Gameplay, (For certain definitions of Love.)

It’s a lie to call this a review of RIFT as a game. A Review of RIFT as a game is basically boiled down to ‘Like X but,’ and there’s really no point to that. I haven’t actually played some of the games personally, that I’d be comparing it too. This is more a review of the whole style of this genre of MMORPG as it relates to RIFT in specific. There won’t be stunning revelations here, I’m hardly the first person to bring these points up. A summary of my review could be gotten by playing Progress Quest or Progress Wars if one wanted. Nonetheless, here’s my take on how to beat a dead horse.

But Don’t Worry, It’s Free!

But It's Free!

In just about a week yet another Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) will be taking the plunge into the risky but profitable waters of Free-to-Play. It’ll be offering up a feast to those people starved by the fairly heavy fantasy offerings that flood the still rather untapped market. It’ll be striking a blow to both City of Heroes/Villains, the current top of the heap in Superhero MMORPG’s and newcomer DCUO which just came out. Not to mention with the C-Store system they already had in place before deciding to take this plunge, they should have little issue making themselves a niche out of a good item shop to sustain themselves.

Of course, to do it, they’ll take out all of the front-end customization of your heroes that let you be something more than a Shadow style gunslinger, or a Superman style brawler, or a Zatanna style Magician. They’ll be limiting what travels powers you can take to really make your hero who you want him to be. They’ll even take away the simple ability to change the Hue of your powers to better match your concept. Basically they’ll take away everything that made Champions Online interesting beyond the Costume Editor, which CoX has more options on, and the Combat System, which by all reports DCUO has refined down to an artform.

But don’t worry, It’s free!