Score
Gameplay:	5
Graphics:	6
Sound:	1
FunFactor:	5
PlasmaFactor:	5
Overall:	4.4

Requiem: Bloodymare Review
June 30, 2008 by Dallas Pursley

I'm going to be up front with you, dear reader, by saying that this will be a short and simple review. At its heart, Requiem: Bloodymare is the same massively multiplayer online game that you've already been playing for years. So those of you that were looking for something to break the mold should look elsewhere.

Gameplay

The character creation process is limited; you take your pick from three different races each with their own abilities and your choice of male or female. There are very few options to change your character's appearance. In Requiem, everyone starts as a Temperion; then, at level ten, you pick your first job. You'll find the standards of the MMO genre here folks. Gold exclamation points above quest givers? Check. Right-clicking to auto-attack? Check again. Quests that involve delivering stuff, killing x amount of something, and talking to Mr. So-and-so are all here and in full force. Do yourself a favor and look at the goal, open your quest tracker, and proceed to be bored.

"My what teeth you have!"

There really isn't much point to grouping except to tackle group zones and nightmare monsters. Even if you get in over your head, you can easily outrun most mobs. Also, don't worry about taking damage from a long fall. At press time, there was no fall damage in place. You could jump from the tallest thing you wanted without worry. It's relatively easy to equip yourself at lower levels as well, as most mobs drop plenty of goodies to sell or equip and prices at NPC shops are pretty low. I never had any trouble with having enough cash, which is probably a good thing as the quest rewards that I saw were all weak compared to what you could get from just farming regular mobs. As a side note, items have durability and must be repaired from time to time.

The world of Requiem is a bleak one. I'm not sure if this is what Gravity was going for in development or just a side effect of the source material. Even with tons of other players around you, the world itself feels empty. Sure, there are shops with NPC merchants but they stand stationary at their post. The cities feel devoid of life in general. No one goes about their daily business. It's like the inhabitants are all just waiting for you. There's no feeling of you being in their world at all.

This is an optionally free MMO. Meaning that it is free to download and play but you do have the option of purchasing either a basic membership plan or a premium one. Upgrading to the basic plan gives your account 20% more experience points from kills and quests and a 10% increase for item drops. Basic will also add regional chat and a free 5% point bonus when you buy points through the Item Mall as well as a reduction in lost experience from death by 30%. The premium service gives you all this but with higher values. The Item Mall I mentioned allows you to buy points to spend on temporary items and abilities for your character. For example, you can purchase a temporary increase to the amount of money you get or a temporary mount for increased movement speed.

Graphics

It doesn't help matters that there isn't much to look at. Everything looks pretty bland. Characters all have the same look about them, due to such a limited character creation process, and the environments in general

doesn't offer anything that will make you lean back and say "Look at that". Characters look like they're running on air, floating instead of running, and don't leave the impression of carrying weight. This is very obvious when jumping as you tend to more or less float up and back down again. The monsters you'll face are rather interesting though, and range from comical to down right grotesque. Weapon designs feature oversized

weapons that all have a deadly look to them. Requiem uses the Havok physics engine, and this becomes apparent when you defeat a mob as doing so sends a random body part flying, often leaving the mob twitching on the ground covered in its own blood. Did I mention there was a lot of blood? Fitting, given the name I suppose.

"Blood blood everywhere."

Sound

You better have a means to play some of your own music handy as there is next to nothing worth listening to here. NPC characters don't have spoken dialog, there is little to no music in game to speak of, and the sound effects for battle get old quick. Fire up some tunes of your own and enjoy.

PlasmaFactor

Given that Gravity Co. boasts Requiem as being the world's "first horror MMO", I was expecting to be scared or at the very least a little jumpy. The first Resident Evil is about a million times more frightening than this. A note to the developer: You can't claim to be a horror anything and not deliver on the

horror part! Blood does not equal horror; calling really tough mobs "Nightmare Monsters" does not equal horror, either. If I had to pick a couple of things that set Requiem apart, it would be the DNA system. At a certain point you can alter your character's DNA, maximizing their strengths and minimizing

"Check me out."

their weaknesses. It allows for some uniqueness among people playing the same classes. The other stand out feature is the Possession Beasts. When you reach the appropriate level, you'll be given a quest for your first Possession Beast ability. When you complete it you'll then have the option of transforming into a beast, giving you various abilities. You can't transform at will though, you have to fill up your "hardcore bar" first.

Conclusion

Aside from the almost total lack of an in-game soundtrack and a world that feels like you're walking through a cardboard cut-out of lifeless NPC cities, there really isn't anything that's necessarily wrong with Requiem. It's all just things that have been done before and better in other titles. Also, there are very few bugs to be a newly launched MMO which is nice. I would have to say that as a free-to-play MMO, it would be worth a look; however, if you're going to bother with paying monthly for the basic or premium account, then you'd be much better off paying to play a better-established title that's already on the market. During my playtime, I had no trouble with leveling. Quests were boring but plentiful and I had very little need of grinding. Loot drops were fine too. I doubt you'd be missing much, if anything at all, by never paying to play. Horror it isn't, but a run-of-the-mill MMO it is.