The Legend of Ares - So you want to go toe-to-toe with the God of War..

Recently while making my rounds for MMORPG news I stumbled upon another gem of a "Free to Play" MMO. The Legend of Ares by MGame/Netgame is an MMO with an epic tale of Gods and men. After watching the cinematic and some game-play footage I decided to delve a bit further into it and see what it was all about.


In order to play the game you must first register for an account online with Netgame. This was a simple process that took all of about 1 min and was relatively routine in questions. Upon completion of the account it was time to download the game client. The entire download took approx 30 mins, as the client file is just over 600meg.


Once the client was done and installed it was time to begin. At the time of this article there were 3 servers online to choose from, Poseidon, Demeter, and Phoenix. There were no indications on the server selections screen to indicate current populations except for a notation that Phoenix was a "NEW" server so I opted for that one.

For me, character creation is always a big part of any MMO as I feel the more you can customize them the more interesting they become. Sadly with Legend of Ares,the characters are very cookie-cutter in that there are only 5 choices for hair styles and faces and no customization for anything else. The result of this limited availability for additional changes show in the gaming world as you will undoubtedly encounter several other people in the first few minutes of the game that look exactly like you. Within the Character creation screen you will also choose your faction, either you will fight along side with the Holy Empire or join ranks with theReligious Alliance.




You will also choose one of four character classes from here, Knight, Spearman, Archer, or Priest. The limited choice in initial classes is offset by the customizable weapons and skills you will acquire as you progress through the game. Items of suitable condition and level have socket slots and can be enchanted. The characters skill tree is also well established allowing you to customize your abilities by spending points inv arious areas such as defensive or offensive capabilities.Having successfully created your character it is time to take on the worldand enter the game.


The UI in the game is very clean and well laid out. Character movement is accomplished through different means, either 'wasd' keys or point-click movement. Enemy encounters as well as NPC interaction is accomplished through a simple click of the mouse. Camera angles are controllable using the "Page" keys as well as the arrow keys. This helps greatly as at times there are enourmous crowds of people gathered around and it can become difficult to navigate your way through the mob of player "Shops" to a NPC stuck snuggly in the middle.


All in all the game was a good find. The graphics are on par with other Free to play games, the PVP warfare element is enjoyable and the Ranking system is great. As an added bonus it's FREE.