Dark Age of Camelot paints a wonderful picture of a magical time. Drawing on the myths and lore of the age, this massively multiplayer game has done a remarkable job in keeping in touch with its community base and providing them what they wanted.

Expansions like Trials of Atlantis, Shrouded Isles and New Frontiers provided depth and strong realm-versus-realm combat elements. The game, if you don’t mind the turn of the phrase, ‘had nowhere to go but down.’ And that is precisely where the latest expansion, Catacombs, is leading gamers.

Mythic Entertainment’s massively multiplayer online game is getting a facelift, offering some new classes, and exploring the territories under the three kingdoms of Midgard, Hibernia and Albion.

Let’s begin with the five new classes to grace the game. Each has a back-story, but that will be dispensed with in favor of merely describing what they add to the game. The Albion new race is the heretic, a high-damage spellcaster. Midgard gets the warlock (another spellcaster who has the ability to slot spells for use in battle and to combo attack – landing a primary and secondary spell at the same time), and the valkyrie, which uses both melee skills and magic, though the latter is in a cone area of effect. Hibernia gets the vampiir (who wields a melee weapon with the right hand but can cast magic with the left while in melee mode) and the bainshee – a female-only specialization of sound-based magic users.

Mythic has been relatively upfront in stating that giving two new races to Midgard and Hibernia was an effort to draw more players to those realms. Albion has been a little overstacked, and while the numbers difference is not huge, it can make a difference in the game’s robust RvR environment. It is Mythic’s hope that by drawing players to the new races, the realms will balance out a little bit more.

The new classes begin at level one and players can re-experience all that Catacombs brings to the DAoC universe from a new and fresh perspective. There are also new areas to explore though the primary story centers on underground-lost races and the travails that await adventures.

Of course, with all that activity underground, some areas may get a little crowded. Mythic has, for the first time, introduced instanced areas. The game itself is built for team play and the instanced missions take all of that into account, allowing fallen or disconnected teammates easy egress back into an instanced area, and with no respawns, you need not worry about fighting through the hordes yet again.

Not only does the game provide new territory to explore, but some of the older existing areas have been upgraded graphically as well. In so many ways, Catacombs breathes fresh visual life into the game, and provides some fascinating visions of the underworlds. However, do not expect this to be a total facelift. There are still cities and other zones that have not been retextured or received that Mythic ‘new look’ finish. This can be a bit distracting especially when you have been underground, working through the new territories with your newly rendered avatar.

Catacombs continues to offer solid sound to the game, which is particularly important in creating the ambience of the new areas.

This expansion does not represent anything tremendously different in the gameplay aspects. Certainly the graphical upgrade has been long awaited and the new races are well designed. Each of them plays well, but are not ‘uber,’ and certainly there are challenges to playing any of the new classes, but that is what makes the name so good and enjoyable.

Gameplay: 9.0

There is a bit of a learning curve, and a bit of a grind when compared to some of the newer MMOs on the market, but DAoC brings depth to the game and that makes it worthwhile. This is a game that is rich with historical mythos, and it underscored the gameplay in numerous ways.

Graphics: 9.0

Definitely a big improvement over the previous look of the game. New lighting and new character models are so stunningly different, that the old DAoC world almost looks flat and two-dimensional by comparison. This is a wonderful facelift.

Sound: 8.8
Still strong and a solid supporting player to the graphics in bringing the mood and theme of the game to life.
 

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
To play the new races, you have to begin again, and that means work.

Concept: 9.0
Mythic has done this very well, not only from the major graphical upgrade to the overall feel tha the new races and new areas bring to the game. They are not a radical departure from what was in the game, but rather a gentle reinforcement of the things that make this game a solid adventure.

Multiplayer: 9.0

An MMO is about community, and DAoC has a very good one, for the most part.

Overall: 9.0

The graphical facelift has really pulled this game up to the next level, but Mythic was not satisfied to end it there. Instead it added new races, and new zones while expanding the mythology of the game as well. Catacombs is a wonderful adjunct to a solid and enjoyable MMO franchise.