When it comes to anything marketed by Perfect World, my first impulse is to stay the hell away and usually its the right one. Very little good comes out of these franchises so when I saw Forsaken World with its super obvious uber emo styling (vampires!), I decided to sit the closed beta out; at least until I saw the Five Things Forsaken World Does Right article recently posted on this very website and figured what do I have to lose, right? Maybe this iteration of their park and spank theme world would actually be enjoyable?

Please fucking kill me now if I have see any more of that captial city.

Like most games games these days- Faxion not included -Forsaken World is pretty. It uses a relatively contemporary graphics engine and imprarts some skill in its world design. The rest of the game? It plays like Warcraft. I know, I'm even tired of saying it, but there's little new ground of note to be mentioned, so why bother.

Now some of you out there actually like warcraft and you might be thinking a change of pace would be nice. Don't do it. If there is one critical you need to know about this game is that it uses central hub quest progression; Meaning all your quests more often than not come from the same place and you'll return there over and over and over again. In itself this isn't so bad, but not like Warcraft that pushes you to dynamic locations further and further away from you stomping grounds. Sure you go back to Stormwind, but it's not your only options.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Forsaken World literally keeps you in the same goddamn city for over twenty levels. Even worse, the bulk of those quests are actually running back and forth around the fairly large city. FOR 20 LEVELS. Of course there are quests to go out and kill stuff. And then you return to run around the city some more. And over. And over. WTF.

And God forbid you're a priest having to rely on the same 2 attacks for that entire time, because you won't see that first talent point until level twenty. Automap becomes a godsend for this game because you'll be literally walking back and forth across the capital dozens upon dozens of times, minimizing the game until you reach your destination in order to do something more exciting on your desktop.

Once the gameplay literally drops to that level, I'm done. It's a lost cause. There's no intellectual stimulation involved. The very way the game is built actually encourages you that whatever plot is built into the quest text largely goes unread because by this point, you'll be highlighting the text autopilot just to get the pain over with.

There's a reason why this Wold is Forsaken. It's becuase its so bogged down in obtusive cluge and endlessly circuluar questing that does nothing to engage the player for 20 levels. Even I can tell the first 20 are more or less the introduction, but did it ever occur to anybody that's a tad excessive? I imagine gameplay may pick up after some time, and I'm not even certain what the level cap is. But am I going to stick around to play what is basically an inferor copy of a Warcraft, which everybody is copying these days?

Fail.

Most games revolve around a gimmick, and when you've got a good one, you milk it for all its worth. Mario had blocks and mushrooms. Sonic has rings and speed.  Everybody loves a good formula for success and and as long as you change it up from time to time, everybody will continue to love your game no matter how many sequels it spawns.

When you don't do this, it's called rehash.

Companies raping the rehash altar are simply lazy baggers looking to make the most money possible by putting in as little effort as they can get away with and have you still buy the game. The MMO industry is a haven for this behavior and most of it resides in the F2P sector because the standards are generally lower than sea level with a budget approximating that of a bad porno. Buy a premade MMO kit, slap some new textures on it, rent the servers and you're in cash shop business.

Not everybody is guilty of free to play fornication, but it looks like Nexon is looking to be first in line to pray at the rehash altar.

That's right folks. Dragon Nest. Now I would like to say I'll be pleasantly surprised by this title since it looks bright, flashy and full of action. My source at PAX confirms the aforementioned attributes, which is good... Except that it plays almost like Mabinogi and Vindicutus, where you have a minimally realized world and randomly generate instanced dungeons that are the antithesis of "Massive" Multiplayer in spite of the MMO tag.

Mabinogi was passable, if not for off kilter rock-paper-scissors combat system and daily job grinding that made the game a job in itself. Vindictus fell even further from that ideal, essentially making the outside world little more than a pretext backdrop to send you to your randomized five man instance dungeon. Sure, it was pretty- Hell , i loved the intro alone -but anybody looking for any sort of depth was sorely disappointed; to the point where it felt like the dev team just ran out of funding when it came to finishing the rest of the game. Vindictus should have been DC Universe and could have easily been that... And just as successful, I might add.

Unfortunately, Dragon Nest is looking to cover the same ground in the same manner. It's pretty, detailed and probably lots of fun until you've had your arcade fix and realize that this sin't an MMO in any way, shape or form, and that you can just go down to the Gameworks or Dave & Busters for the same hack and slash without the hassle of a cash shop purposely crippling your gaming experience.

Then again, who knows. Maybe they actually completed this one. Added some badly needed depth? I'd be surprised, though. F2p has left me a bitter gamer and it looks like Nexon is content with sucking the rehash off to the last drop.