Mithycaen revisits Meridian 59

Review submitted by Mithycaen

Well, here I am again, back on Meridian 59! It's been a long time to say the least. While many of you 'old fogies' out there know this game, there are, I'm told, a multitude of 'newbies' that have never heard of the game. Well, kids...gather round, sit here on the carpet and let Uncle Mithy tell you a story.

A long time ago, at a time when the internet was very, very young, there came a group of boys and girls that thought the idea of taking a MUD and making it graphical would be just the coolest thing ever. What's that, you don't know what a MUD is? Hmmm...well, let me see if I can explain it to you.

A MUD is a Multi-User Domain or Dominion. Basically it's a program that allows multiple users to interact with each other over a network. Some of these MUDs were set up with programs that acted like games. Folks would run around these game worlds and do all the neat things we do now in our online games. The only real difference was that these games were all text based. Yeah, I know, it's hard to get your mind around huh? Well, don't worry, back in my day this is how we did it.

Anyway...so all these graphics people and programmers got together and came up with one of the very first MMORPGs. It was revolutionary! We went crazy! The best thing I'd ever seen to say the least.

Meridian 59 was a simple game to play but a difficult one to master. You began your life with almost no knowledge of the world or any powers at all. Early on, you had to decide who you were going to be. Did you want to be a pure fighter type, who could hack and slash his or her way through the most horrific monsters? Or, would you be a magic user, drawing upon the powers of magic to do your bidding? You could be a healer or a person who made and sold things. Anyone you wanted, you could be.

As you fought and learned you would gain new skills and powers. You could then get new spells or learn a new way of fighting. Soon you would be adventuring in some of the darkest, scariest places you'd ever seen and fighting monsters the likes you don't even want to have nightmares about.

The world was vast. From the beaches of Barloque to the forests of Marion, you could spend hours and hours scouring the world for treasure, spend a quiet evening watching the moon rise or hang out with friends in Familiars, quaffing an ale or two and trading tales of your adventures.

I'll tell you kiddies. I can remember many fun and interesting times in Meridian 59. It was always fun, exciting and entertaining.

At last Meridian 59 has returned and it's better than I remember it! They have completely redesigned some of the towns and our favorite saloon, Fams, has had a complete makover! There are new areas for adventuring, like the Lost Island which I'm looking forward to exploring myself shortly. Best of all, soon it will be better than ever. The gang at Near Death Studios has some incredible stuff in store for the game. From a new graphics engine and client to dynamic lighting which is going to make this oldster very happy. They are also planning many other, new enhancements.

Meridian 59 is the kind of MMORPG that's just fun to play. With multiple schools of magic to pursue you can be as diverse as you like. As a pure fighter type, there are a multitude of skills to learn. Of course, you can always take your character the way of a dual roll by applying pure fighting skills with magic. Meridian 59 also has an interesting method of handling the PvP issue of gaming. You can elect to engage in PvP or not, a feature not available in other MMORPGs. This adds a very interesting dimenstion to the game. Meridian's chat features are also unique. There is a world chat that allows players to be heard across the game world. I haven't seen this in other, more recent, games.

You also aren't restricted by the 'normal' leveling treadmill so prevalent in newer games. A low level character can actually have a meaningful role in a group with much higher level characters. It is actually possible to have a fairly robust character without running around hacking and slashing everything in site. Many friends of mine have characters that are merchant types and have never fought anything bigger than a baby spider.

The client itself is very small, requiring a minimum of computing power to play. Unlike the newest games out there that are Pentium dependent, Meridian can be played most basic PCs with a very basic graphics card. It performs very well over connection speeds as low as 14.4kBPS (that's dial-up modem for you youngsters).

Give Meridian 59 a try. It's a gas and I guarantee you that you don't need a 'monster' machine to play it either ;) Remember, we didn't have these big desktops back in the good old days.