The lord of epic fantasy games has finally hit the world of massively multi-player online role playing. It's not been an easy road. It took an aborted attempt from Climax Games to get here, but with a rescue operation from Mythic Entertainment, it's finally here.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (or WAR, as Mythic is calling it) takes Games Workshop's fantasy Warhammer world and drops you right into the middle of it. For those of you who've always had a penchant for hulking men with swo ... more >>

The lord of epic fantasy games has finally hit the world of massively multi-player online role playing. It's not been an easy road. It took an aborted attempt from Climax Games to get here, but with a rescue operation from Mythic Entertainment, it's finally here.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (or WAR, as Mythic is calling it) takes Games Workshop's fantasy Warhammer world and drops you right into the middle of it. For those of you who've always had a penchant for hulking men with swords but have never understood the 20-sided dice, this is the daddy of all gaming experiences.

Players enter the dark fantasy world to fight for either the Realm of Order - the Dwarves, High Elves and Empire (mostly humans) - or Destruction - Greenskins (Orcs and Goblins), Dark Elves, and Chaos (mostly men-folk).

The backbone of Warhammer Online, which sets it apart from other MMOs, is Realm vs Realm play, in which players will be able to join sprawling battles against myriad other players. The ultimate goal is to sack other realms' cities, but don't expect it to be easy. Most folks don't take kindly to that sort of thing.

Also key to the Warhammer Online experience are the Public Quests. These player-versus-environment quests are an exercise in community building, and will enable allied players in a certain location to get stuck into an ongoing, multi-stage battle.

Pack up your hammers! It's time to go to war! << less