	Lineage II - The 1st Throne: The Kamael
	Developer: NCSoft Publisher: NCSoft Release Date: Out Now Players: MMO - but presumably they're all in Asia	Words By:
Look, I’m going to cut the crap right off the bat here – there are better things you can do with your time than play (deep breath!) Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne: The First Throne - The Kamael (that's it's full title). Of course, one could argue you can do better things with your time than play video games anyway (and you might be right); but for those of you like me who have hours of your day unfilled even after the likes of a job, further education, a significant other etc. then games are a perfectly legitimate time sink, and to you my fellows I would say simply say, do not play this game. Playing Lineage II: The Chao – bloody hell – Lineage II in its most recent incarnation (The Kamael is the latest expansion) is a bit like time travelling. I was a newbie to MMORPGs before this, but credit that I am to this reviewing establishment I went and brushed up on a little bit of World of Warcraft and its ilk. Trusty and infallible Wikipedia tells me that the original release of Lineage II predates WoW by about a year, and as such it was never in any position to seriously learn from Blizzard’s all-conquering behemoth. This is to Lineage’s serious detriment, because even though The Kamael is billed as an update, all it amounts to is trying to put a bit of better-looking flesh on old bones. The core of the game remains unaltered, and it’s virtually identical to that found in every other MMO of Eastern heritage. Can you guess what it is? If you said “a grind”, then well done. Your prize is three hours killing orcs in some non-descript forest for which you may well receive a small reward, such as carpal-tunnel. Perhaps you’d like to know how my first tentative toe-dip into this world went. When I started to play I chose the new race The Kamael brings to the Lineage world, a race of one-winged Sephiroth wannabes called, funnily enough, the Kamael. Despite the expansion having gone live over a month before I set foot on one of the European servers (of which there only seem to be two) the starting area for this race was depressingly devoid of all but a handful of other players, supplemented by some statuesque NPCs. No sooner had I wandered out of the cave in which I materialised than I received the bewildering of my life to see a rabbit-type creature simply fade into existence in front of me. A fellow newbie was slaying these ferocious beasts nearby, and in order to keep the numbers up for any other folk who might wander by (for some mind-numbing single-click combat) the game was simply plonking new ones down in front of him. Not only that, but despite the veritable genocide of their fellows most of the animals remained suspiciously oblivious to the violence occurring mere pixels away. It was right then, after scant minutes in-game, that I knew Lineage II was going to leave me cold. I wandered into the first fortress-type-thing I could find, a ghost town holding more zombie NPCs and looking like someone in NCSoft’s art department had just looked at the sketches for the Tower of Mordor in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and said “that’ll do nicely”. I found the “Newbie Guide” (I swear it’s almost as if the devs tried to think of every possible barrier to immersion and shove them in here) who told me to sod off until I had gained a few levels, but helpfully thought to add that I might be able to do that by killing some of the local innocent wildlife for a few hours. Sighing, I sauntered off to where I’d seen the ferocious rabbit-slayer from earlier and set about the same task (clicking a few times and tapping the odd function key). I took on a few things that resembled foxes too, for the sake of some variety, and after some unrelated levelling up was told that I had “acquired pants”. Magically. Out of thin air. From killing a fox!... Oh my!… Does that sound like fun to you? I thought not. Throw in the fact that the game flat out told me to go and grind for a few hours before I could reasonably attempt to do anything else makes it all the more depressing. The quests I was able to dig up as a low level Kamael fighter were equally shambolic and half-arsed, offering me the chance to run from one NPC to another (across some ridiculous distance) or to go and kill more things. That’s all this new expansion seems to offer to the novice. NCSoft seem to like waxing lyrical about Lineage’s Player-versus-Player combat and the fortress and castle siege battles they’ve worked into the game. Clans can stage massive battles with each other and even claim their own terrain, but the fact that you face hours’ worth of killing things standing around just waiting to be killed takes all the gloss off. Never mind the new race, extra zones, graphical polish and all the other shiny new tweaks The Kamael tries to bring to the table – I’m sure the hardcore players that are inexplicably addicted to this game will find something worthwhile in there. It’s all still a grind machine deep down and I’ve no time for such things. I’d much prefer to be having some actual fun.

Best Bits
- A welcome break from my overwhelmingly interesting life
- Lots of new stuff for experienced players

Worst Bits
- Tough for beginners to get "in" to
- Grind
- Grind
- Grind
- Grind
- Grind…
- Grind


by: Barry 'Imperial Creed' White