Endless Ages, Aaron Boucher’s brainchild, was billed as the first MMOFPSRPG way back in 2003. Since its release, there has been many an argument between fans of Endless Ages and fans of Planetside as to who came first. Since then, the game has also changed hands several times. With this release, the current owner has already created a PvP-only version of the game that plays more like an FPS than anything, called EA:Core, and there are already plans to remake the game under the name Battle for IIA (a bit of a misnomer, as I recall the planet’s name being “Lia”, not “IIA”). Now, with the 3rd (4th?) release of the game, it’s time to re-review the classic.

Gameplay

Upon starting up Endless Ages, I logged in, went through the all too familiar loading screen and began creating my character. I went with amphibian, because I was most interested in their set of stats, as opposed to the other races’ (it’s interesting to note that human males and females are two separate races). Actually creating a character in Endless Ages leaves much to be desired. There are quite a few options, but many of them look either ugly or ridiculous, and it’s pretty obvious which pieces were meant to match with what, as there isn’t a whole lot of a mix and match factor if you want to have any color coordination. For me, the most interesting part of character customization was choosing whether I wanted one eye or two, and whether I wanted fins or not. Frankly, I was already a bit displeased, especially since I was watching my amphibian reflect light off of his low-resolution textured body, but I let it go.

After running the rudimentary tutorial and struggling with the interface for what seemed much longer than it was, I finally got dumped into another zone. Zones in Endless Ages are…well, they’re large…and pretty empty feeling. It just doesn’t feel like there’s all that much there. There are tons of mobs rolling and walking and flying around, but other than that, it just feels barren. It’s even worse at night.

Quests in Endless Ages are few and far between. Actually, I shouldn’t say that. Dependent on your level, quests are few and far between. Dependent on how long you’re willing to sit in a tree and shoot, unmoving, at the mob you need, you could go on until the quests run out. I really had a problem with this. The fact that the system could be overtaken that easily just seemed ridiculous. Not to mention, the game’s quests are so uninformative that by the time you’ve found what you need and completed a quest, chances are that you might have been able to grind more than what you got from the quests off of sitting in a tree and shooting at mobs.

Speaking of mobs, they’re dumb as rocks. Literally all they do is charge at you. If you happen to hide behind something they can’t get past, you’re safe. They’ll just sit there and charge you until they somehow die. They also lag all over the place, and hit detection is way off. I don’t know how many times I was running (hopping) backwards, shooting at a flob, when it would momentarily freeze up only to find out that it had jolted forward, rolling over me and killing me. Good thing you don’t drop items at early levels. Unfortunately, when you die, you have to equip everything all over again.

One thing I did find interesting about Endless Ages’ gameplay was the fact that jetpacks play a huge part in it. However, they also play a huge part in glitching it.

Another interesting part of it is that you level up skills, as opposed to your character. However, seeing as you only start with one skill and you don’t even have to use it to level it, the entire system was totally lost on me.

Graphics

The graphics are blocky, they’re crude, and they are in no way appealing to look at. I realize the game was released in 2003 originally, but with all the times it’s traded hands, no one could have simply taken the time to make more impressive graphics?

Sound

Sound is horrendous. By the 300th time you’ve shot your weapon, you’ll be wondering if it’s a laser gun or a futuristic squirt gun. Other than that, most sounds seem completely mistimed and often severely out of place.

Overall

Overall, this game just isn’t worth the time. A lot of people revere it for having great PvP, but seeing as it’s just arena PvP with jetpacks, I don’t really understand the draw. Even if I had lasted in the game long enough to reach a point where I was viable in PvP, I can’t say I would have enjoyed it. It had some interesting player housing features back in the day, but they’ve since randomly disappeared. Never have I been so appalled by a game as I have now. Even though they were a no budget garage team, I’m sure Aaron Boucher and his team could have been much better than they did.

Final Score: 2/10