I recently spent some time with massively multi-player online game ‘Second Life’ and at first found it a terribly lonely experience. No matter how many people were around, it felt like I was isolated from them all due to the awful quality of the user generated content and environments as well as the confusing menus. It wasn’t until I discovered the innovative flying system that I found salvation. Flying around was something I hadn’t seen before in an online game and something which makes complete sense in something like Second Life where hypothetically, you are playing your ’second life’. It’s almost like a dream where there is a sense of reality, albeit distorted. I spent hours flying around the world popping in and out of peoples creations and watching as they went about their connected lives, going from situation to situation seamlessly and unquestioned.

PlayNC seem to be taking this flying aspect and expanding it into the ’serious’ realms of their new game ‘Aion’. The developers boast that it is the most beautiful online game ever created which is clearly quite a claim. The dream like graphics and scenery from the screenshots can give us a slight sense of the beauty PlayNC are trying to put across in their next big online game. Not only is flying a major part of transportation in the game but also a part of the fighting system. With new ways to engage in combat with your opponents, Aion could also become the most technical online role playing title as well. Story wise, the game allows you to play in a mystical kingdom surrounding a war of ethereal proportions - quite the fantasy setting. From the creators of ‘Guild Wars’ and ‘City of Heroes’, I don’t have any doubts that this will be a great game.

From the looks of things, PlayNC have picked up on the dream like feeling of online games and are pioneering it using a terribly interesting and high quality (unlike Second Life) system.

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