While I'm a big follower of the MMO scene, I must admit that it had been a while before I checked back in on Aion and suddenly it was upon us. Generally speaking I'd give most of the major releases a look in to see the direction the genre was heading. Not that this actually means anything as for the most part everyone's looking for a WoW (World of Warcraft) killer. I personally can't see why decent MMO's can't exist side-by-side instead of having to face a public showdown. After all, Everquest and Asheron's Call are still going and have been for a damn sight longer than WoW has and I'm sure that's no skin off Blizzards back.

Aion steps into the scene with 2 major features. (1) that you can fly and (2) that it uses the Crytek engine. Flying of course holds a big attraction for people playing the fantasy side to MMO's as that's never really been offered in any mainstream way before and while people might jump-the-gun on using the Crytek engine as they're used to with Crysis it's actually been scaled extremely well to offer the chance to run it in the highest possible settings for a truly stunning result.

The general storyline is that you awake from a nap, being chastised by your seniors for falling asleep on the job and being sent off to start completing tasks for the generals and officers of each town. The first 10 levels of the game are basically an intro; something to get you used to your character choice and work towards becoming a Daeva (the bit where you get your wings). As you reach level 9 you'll get a quest that after completing means you'll transcend into another location, get your wings and have to choose a sub-class.

Starting off you get to choose between 2 factions and 4 classes. The faction you choose means that's where you'll stick – seeing as they're at war, socialising with the opposing side isn't really the 'done thing'. Each class you choose will later divide into 1 of 2 sub-classes once you reach level 10. The 4 classes you can choose from are:

Warrior
The standard hack 'n' slash tank of the pack who's all about taking the heat in the battle; the front line defence against the enemy. A warriors sub-classes are either to be a Templar, where your focus will reside in soaking damage and supporting your team through beneficial buffs, or Gladiator where it's all about how much damage you can dish out to as many people at once.

Mage
The damage dealing, skirt wearing gurus of magic – as always. Level 10 gives you the choice between the focused damage dealing Sorcerer or the stronger solo class of Spirtmaster who gets to summon pets. Always a bonus.

Scout
Balancing between dexterity and dealing damage, the Scouts find the best way to take an enemy out , preferably without being hit. Their class divide sees them choosing between becoming a Ranger, who specialises in ranged attacks or becoming an Assassin who prefers to get up-close-and-personal.

Priest
As always the Priests cover healing themselves and their team-mates. They can become a decent hybrid of damage and heals by choosing to become a Cleric at level 10 or whether they want to completely focus on healing and become a Chanter.

As always, with a factional choice, you can choose between the happy-shiny people (Elyos) or the dark-brooding bunch (Asmodian), while the general goon population is reserved for the Balaur. Thus completing a decent trio of Player Vs. Player Vs. Enemy (or environment) and opening up an array of challenges and scenarios that I'm sure NC Soft hopes will entice and retain interest from a wide scope of players. Seeing as Aion is still in it's Closed Beta stage time will tell on that one, but the hype and feedback that has surrounded Aion for some time now seems to have held it's chin above water. Whether this will be the case when other anticipated MMO's hit the shelves (Star Wars: The Old Republic, Final Fantasy XIV etc) time will tell. And no, I don't think it's a WoW killer, but God why do we always need to compare one against the other people?

So, the first 10 levels then. I felt like hitting things so went with a Warrior for eases sake and that I hopefully wouldn't have to worry too much about being thwacked about by everything I came across in noobsville. I was thankfully right about that much at least.

The graphics are great, I have to say that. I knew Crytek would have to think about how they'd scale their engine for the likes of an MMO and they seemed to pull it off really well considering I had my graphics all up to max. Very impressive. Additionally it's all the little things they've thought of, I mean not just the combat animations which at times are completely over-the-top, but just the little animations you character will do while standing around. If it's raining he'll grab a leaf to shelter under or if he's standing in a river he'll try to catch a fish. Of course, this doesn't make or break the game and I'm sure a lot of people will overlook this – but for a game that I was expecting to be all about the wings and nothing else it's been nice to see that they haven't forgot that immersion is particularly important in an MMO.

The first 10 levels are straight forward enough. You get quests in the typical fashion by asking for them and returning for your reward on completion. A new system that seems to have become popular for this is that you have your main storyline quests and you have some side-missions. Presumably the storyline ones will become more difficult at later levels resulting in groups completing them rather than trying to go it solo. It's a strong system that works for me as while we all want to complete the main missions to get the best gear, I can't stand simply grinding mobs in-between levels and so having some sub-missions at least gets a player involved once again with the world around them. Another valuable tick in the immersion box.

Once you do those first few levels and transcend to becoming a Daeva, obtain your wings and choose a sub-class, things start to get interesting. Not particularly from a quest standpoint, more that the options and interests increase. Customising your character in the first place was impressive enough for an MMO, but then to customise your armour to level you can means that no one should ever look the same. Something I can't bloody stand when it comes to MMO's. The crafting system is straight forward enough that most can at least have a go at it. Furthermore, the dynamic that is flight will bring a whole new level of strategy to PvP.

The music, graphics, animations and content are all there for sure. It's now largely going to come down to whether enough people join and the content keeps coming to keeping people around. In that respect I can see the game doing extremely well in the long run when players start to sink their teeth into the offered quests, raids and Player Vs. Player content.