When Amazon announced in 2014 that it would start developing video games, the gaming world was puzzled and suspicious.
Can this goliath of an online retailer actually produce quality video games? “Crucible,” “Nova” and “The Lord Of The Rings MMO ” were some of the games Amazon was set to release.
Massive multiplayer online (MMO) games have thousands of players in the same world at the same time with whom one can chat, trade, and duel. The freedom from such large scale multiplayer games makes the games popular.
But the games were never released, marking a rocky start for Amazon.
“Lost Ark,” released on Feb. 11 (or Feb.8 if you pre-ordered the game), quickly became one of the hot new games on the market and created Amazon gaming approval.
Lost Ark hit a concurrent player count of one million players, meaning that one million players are playing the game across various servers at the same time, according to SteamDB, an online tool that monitors player count.
What sets Lost Ark apart from other video games is its unique dungeon-crawler gameplay and stunning visuals.
Lost Ark allows players to control a character from a top-down, third-person view as they explore vast open areas including caves, forests and towns known as dungeons. As you explore, hordes of enemies attack you.
Since there are thousands of players at a time on one server, it can be annoying to have other players come and steal game objectives and other opportunities in the world. When this happens, you have to wait until the objective is over or an enemy spawns again, but having other players in the world sets Lost Ark apart from other dungeon-crawlers.
From the very beginning, Lost Ark makes players believe it’s an MMO with the character options the game offers. They’re the usual suspects of medieval-era warfare games, including a warrior, mage, striker, gunner and assassin. Lost Ark then turns it up a notch and gives each class more advanced sub-classes.
I chose the gunner class and had three choices for an advanced class: a sharpshooter who uses bows, a deadeye who uses three different types of weapons, or an artillerist who uses heavy weapons and guns.
Deadeye was the best choice for me. What separates a deadeye from the other gunner advanced classes is the use of three weapons at once. You can switch to either dual-pistols, a shotgun or a rifle, though each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses. This makes the gameplay feel fresh and helps lift the curse of the gameplay becoming too stale and repetitive.
The world of Lost Ark is breathtaking. You can tell the team over at Amazon games focused on the aesthetics of the world. Each town and zone feels unique. The starting town of Prideholm feels small enough to get around fast, but it still feels like a big, proud town. Statues of the town mascot, a lion, are everywhere. This separates it from the town of Yudia, which is a desert city filled with bazzars.
There are some special areas in the game that can be used as viewpoints. Once activated, a player’s camera zooms out to a good view of the landscape. It can make the cliche levels of forests and mines feel more alive and less like a “grind zone.”
A “grind zone” is an area where you kill everything in sight for experience points and repeat the process.
But no video game is perfect and there are some cracks in “Lost Ark.”
The game overuses the “G” key on the keyboard. “G” reigns supreme in the game, with every action including talking, picking up an item and using an item in the overworld being done with the key.
Out of the 104 keys on a computer keyboard, it would have been a nice touch to have some variety rather than mashing the same button for hours.
The game also feels repetitive, like every other MMO created. Once again, you’re the mysterious hero who has to save the world from evil.
There are some quests where you go from one NPC (Non-Playable Character,) click two times to the left, talk to the other NPC and complete the quest. While it is an easy tactic to make quests seem longer and to stretch out the overall story, it feels unnecessary.
Despite these flaws, the servers have been experiencing heavy traffic which is expected for a new, free video game. According to a Feb.14 Digital Trends article, over 1.2 million people logged in within the first day of launch. Each one of the servers is busy upon login.
Digital Trends is a technology publisher, according to its “about us” webpage.
Some players reported that they had to wait hours before they could enter the game, according to an article written by VG247.
I’ve personally never had this problem and have been able to play for hours.
The development team said it will be adding more servers to help accommodate user traffic associated with the popularity of the game.
Overall, Lost Ark has potential but flaws may ruin the popularity of the game in the future.
If you like dungeon-crawler games that can kill a few hours in your day, pick this game up. Since it’s free to play, it never hurts to take a chance on a game for which you paid nothing.
