Atlantica

Game: Atlantica

Publisher: NDOORS

Download or web based: Download required

What you get if you pay: You can purchase Gcoins which are redeemed for premium items and various licenses.

Review: Taking place in 14th Century Europe and Asia, Atlantica is a very good game. Well worth the 2.1 GB required download.

The battle system is turn based with a time limit for each turn. This means a player must pay attention during play but allows for other tasks to be completed at the same time. A player's main character is assisted in battle by a number of hired mercenaries that increases every 10 levels until the group totals 9 combatants. The variety of available mercenary types allows for many playing styles. Whether using two columns of marksmen firing their rifle or three rows of melee fighters swinging axes, swords, and spears any strategy can be tried and satisfied.

While some games merely discuss cooperation and assisting other players Atlantica actually rewards it. Sharing enemy information between players is rewarded with extra Stamina needed to fight more and more battles. Sending gifts to beginners nets experience points based on the value of the gift sent. Perhaps the best example of rewarding assistance is the Mentoring system. A player with a high enough crafting skill level can become a Mentor and share their knowledge with an Apprentice and get rewards of gold when the Apprentice reaches certain levels of their own.

The only downside is the NPC quest based tutorial system. The battle system is well explained when a player first logs on. However there are many other aspects of the game that are learned later. In some cases much, much later. Being level 28 it can annoying to come across a required storyline quest to learn a crafting skill that has nearly been mastered thanks to a Mentor. It seems to me that explaining Guilds, crafting and other social aspects of the game can be done in the first tutorial area before embarking on the quest to rediscover Atlantis.

Rating: 8/10 Enchanting gameplay, great help, with only a small amount of annoying back and forth running for quests.