I've talked about Mythos in passing a couple times so far, but now that I've had some time with the beta I figured I'd do a preview (that and GTA4 is preventing me from completing any games).  If you don't know what Mythos is let me explain: Mythos is fun.  Mythos is free.  Mythos is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).  At least that's what the Mythos website wants you to believe, I'll discuss whether or not it hits the mark for all three of those bullet points in this preview.

mythoslogo Well I hate to go out of order, but let's start with Mythos being free - it absolutely is.  This is sort of a new concept in the PC gaming world, that is to say games for free.  It's a trend that is becoming more and more popular though as the market for high-end PC games (Crysis, for example) dwindles while the market of casual PC gamers increases exponentially.  Basically the idea behind making a game free is that the barrier to entry, much like with the post I made about Trent Reznor giving away the latest Nine Inch Nails album away for free, is very minimal.  People don't have to worry about whether or not they want to spend their $50 - $60 on this game or another, they can just grab the game and if they like they play it and if not they won't.  Similarly the game happens to run on rather modest hardware so you don't have to have a top-of-the-line gaming rig to play it.  I like to call my gaming PC "throwback," and it runs really well for me.  Basically, if you can run World of Warcraft which is one of the least demanding PC games out your machine will destroy Mythos.

quakeIIIarenalogo Developers of PC games turning more towards creating games that can run on a wider range of hardware is also a bit of a trend in the industry, as other staples of PC gaming have started projects with the goal of being able to run a game inside of a web browser.  The two most notable games (aside from Mythos, which doesn't run in a browser) are Quake Zero and Battlefield: Heroes.  Quake Zero is from id Software, brainchildren of the Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein series, and it's basically an adaptation of Quake III:Arena made for the web browser.  Quake III was one of the most popular PC games in its history and it really put the concept of multiplayer on the map.  A lot of time has passed since then so now you'll be able to play it in a web browser for free.  I'm definitely excited for this one because I wasn't really into PC gaming when Quake III was at its zenith so to go back and experience a classic will be really fun.  Not only that but I don't have to worry about whether my machine can handle it, and I can pretty much play it from any computer I have including my Macbook.  Definitely a plus there.

battlefieldhereoslogo Battlefield Heroes is from one of my absolute favorite PC developers, DICE, and it's Battlefield game which happens to be one of my favorite series in PC gaming.  Unlike Quake Zero this game is not a remake, but instead a completely original game so needless to say I'm pretty excited about it.  So this is all well and good for the gamers but obviously the developers have to make money to fund these projects.  How does that work?  Well, we all know that online advertising is huge these days so all of the games I've mentioned so far plan to execute some advertising to a degree.  In Mythos and Battlefield Heroes' case they'll also have some additional functionality that users can pay for if they choose to.  For example, say in Mythos (I'm trying to stay on subject, I apologize for the tangent) you wanted some sweet gear but you didn't want to spend the time tracking it down.  You could become a subscriber and get access to better armor and weapons that normal users don't get.  Another possibility (I have no idea if this will be in the game, but it should be) is paying for faster leveling.  All MMORPG games are based on leveling - basically completing quests or killing enemies in the game for experience points and once you get enough experience you gain a level.  The more levels you have the more powerful your character.  Well say your buddy is playing Mythos but he's a much higher level than you are - you want to play with him but you'll never be able to catch up to his level.  I think it would be a cool feature if they added the option to pay a fee to get 200% - 500% faster experience.  World of Warcraft players are used to being rewarded when they come back from not playing for a while with gaining faster experience - the same could be done here but you'd be paying for it.  Anyways, back to the preview.

So the game is free, we've got that down.  How is the gameplay though?  It wouldn't be surprising for a developer to skimp on a game if it's going to be free.  That old saying "you get what you pay for" comes to mind, if it's free then what's the catch?  Is the game garbage?  To make a long story short, no.  It's actually surprisingly fun.   If you've played any MMORPG you'll be right at home with playing Mythos.  You get different quests to go on all over the in-game map, you slay monsters and get new weapons and armor to upgrade your character, and generally you just advance through the game one level at a time.  The camera for the game is done from a top-down perspective much like in my personal favorite online RPG Diablo, but the game looks surprisingly good.  Textures are clean, the enemies are styled and animated well even if they are a little repetitive, and they really pull of the cartoon-like style well.

There are also some unexpected niceties in Mythos - first off there's a very rich crafting system.  Crafting usually pertains to finding items in the game world that would seem like junk and being able to put them together in different combinations to create something useful to the player.  For example if you need a new sword you can take up crafting to make one instead of trying to buy one or get one off of a dead enemy.  Not only that but they have different styles of crafting to appease the different character types in the game.  Mythos has your typical character types (Mage, Warrior, Engineer etc.) and each gets its own benefits from crafting.  If you're playing the warrior character type in Mythos (it's called "Bloodletter" in the game) you obviously have no use for crafting a magic staff.  Instead you want a sweet axe or a shield.  The crafting system has you covered there, and vice-versa. 

Next up I wanted to talk about the character races in the game which were a pleasant surprise.  Because Mythos is sort of capitalizing on the fact that it's a bit of a straight-forward "generic" MMORPG you would expect to see the same old races that have shown up in every other MMORPG since the dawn of time.  Elves, dwarves, so on and so forth.  That's not the case though, there are actually some interesting races like the cyclops race.  You can't tell me you've ever played a cyclops in a video game before.  They also have satyr and gremlin races which are pretty unique.  Of course they have the old standby if you aren't feeling adventurous (human) but I think it would be worth your time to give the other races a shot.  They all have their own benefits and are better suited for certain classes than the others.  Basically, despite the races being derivative in functionality their design is surprisingly unique.

Another surprising thing about Mythos is that the boss enemies are surprisingly interesting and unique.  In order to explain what I mean by that I have to give a little history for the game.  Mythos is being created by the makers of Hellgate: London (Flagship Studios), another MMORPG that I've played.  Hellgate was underrated in my opinion, but one valid criticism is that a lot of the boss enemies were rehashes of what you had seen previously in the game.  For example, you'd make your way through a dungeon only to get to the very end and see you have to fight a blown-up version of whatever it was you were fighting all the way through.  Pretty lame.  With Mythos though they stepped it up and created unique boss enemies, so for example in one quest I was fighting my way through a cave destroying a bunch of rogue stags, and once I got to the end I fought massive grizzly bear.  It was completely unexpected and I was happy that they switched it up.  In Mythos it seemed like even the smaller less significant quests ended up with a big boss battle at the end.  That's great because there's nothing like instilling some sense of accomplishment in a player after they've completed something to keep them interested.

So that's the good, what's bad?  Well, I personally think their map system isn't very intuitive.  I find myself having some trouble getting from place to place to complete quests in the game.  Also the story is all but nonexistent.  From the start of the game you're basically handed a quest and told to get to the demon-killing right away without much of an explanation.  There's some vague information there about a "pale cloaked man" which may come to fruition after putting some more time into the game but so far for me the story has been invisible.  On a related note the game seems to be a bit of a schizophrenic - I don't think Flagship Studios is sure of what identity the game will take.  There is some mild humor in the game that was stressed a lot more when I was reading news about it, but after playing it and expecting there to be gags along the way I was surprised to find none.  I sort of thought that Mythos would be a satirical game poking fun at MMORPG stereotypes but I don't really find any of that.  The reason I bring that up is because they could play off the lack of a story if the humor was there, but it's not.  Still, I'm sure a lot of that will be worked out over time when the game takes on a life of its own.

Also, it's important to note that at this stage the game is still just a beta, so my gripes with it might have been taken care of by the time the retail release (retail referring to the time when the game is freely accessible to everyone since the game is free).  Still, the key components are there, especially the most important one: that "just one more" feeling that makes MMORPGs so addictive.  It's the same attribute that is applied to potato chips where it's impossible to have only one, with an MMORPG you should have a hard time putting the game down constantly telling yourself "Oh, I'll just do this one last quest."  Mythos definitely hits the nail on the head there.  I've sat down anticipating to play for a half hour to an hour only to realize three hours later that I just lost a lot of time to the game because I was trying to get to the next level so I could add a new skill to my demon-bashing repertoire.

In conclusion, longest post ever?  I think so.  As far as Mythos goes though I'm pretty confident with telling gamers they should at least try it out.  If you're a fan of MMORPG games and especially if you've never played one this is the perfect opportunity to give it a shot.  After all the game is free, right?  What's the worst that could happen.  If you're interested in playing Mythos it's only open to people with invites to the beta, but you can sign up to get an invite here and they'll email you eventually with the info you need to get started.  Also, congratulations if you've made it to the end of this post!  Please e-mail me at dmkemick@live.com so I know that there were some survivors.  Bards shall weave tales of your heroism for ages to come!  =)