Gods And Heroes: Previews! Previews! Everywhere I look! Previews!

This time its Gamespy that gives us their impression of the game.

It's a bit of a surprise that fantasy and future archetypes have been mined for MMORPG settings, but not history. The last time we heard anything involving Romans and MMOs, it was for the sadly "postponed" Imperator from Mythic. So it's a positive bullet point that Sony Online Entertainment's Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising is based on Roman mythology, ensuring a nice mix of gladiatorial hijinks and legendary critters like minotaurs and cyclopses.

Plot-wise, the game centers around the telchine (weird magician/metallurgists who were kicked out of Rome by the gods), their alliance with the titans, and their attempt to reconquer Rome. After generating a new character, you're tossed into a newbie area: a gladiator pit which is essentially a telchine test. It's during this trial that you learn that you're directly descended from one of the twelve Roman gods, and you'll thus become a key part of the battle between the gods and the telchine.

After selecting a character class, you then select a patron god. Each of the six classes has two patron gods to choose from, such as the soldier class choosing between Mars (god of war) and Minerva (goddess of wisdom/strategy) or the scout choosing between Apollo (god of the sun) and Diana (goddess of the hunt). Interestingly, while the game uses the Romanized versions of classic Greek god names, the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis (who is one of the patrons of the rogue class), retains her Greek name. Perhaps her Roman name, Invidia, sounds too close to the hardware company. Each patron god grants a set of divine powers that players can invoke when needed; examples include Jupiter's thunder (obviously a large hurrah of smoke, thunder, and lightning for massive area damage) and Cere's thorns (thorns which pop up and inflict damage over time).

Read the entire article at the GameSpy Website!