Thursday, May 15, 2008
Granado Espada: Chapter I
Every so often I like to dabble in some online MMORPG hell-raising. The last year or so, living in the ‘Mac realm’ has put a halt to such indulgences. It’s not exactly a MMORPG friendly platform, and that’s fine, I still love it. There hasn’t been a huge influx of titles I had really wanted to play anyway, Aion is still coming soon as far as I know. One of the last addictions I experienced was called Granado Espada, also known as Sword of the New World for EU/US audiences. As far as originality goes with these online titles, Granado stands above the rest of them. Gone are the days of just controlling a single avatar, oh yes, now you’re in full control of three characters at once! Don’t worry, this is nowhere near as daunting as it first sounds. The controls are extremely intuitive and smooth. One could sit back in a semi-automatic AI if just starting out, the more experienced among us can dive right in and control each character manually should the need arise.
Aesthetically, Granado Espada is amazing. I would imagine the game setting itself to be quite the gamble for Hakkyu Kim, Granado creator and CEO of IMC Games, who opted for a classic Baroque Europe instead of the over used ‘Dungeons & Dragon-esque’ worlds. Everything looks incredible, and that’s pretty much why I stopped playing a year ago. It was pure blasphemy to run something like Granado on a low-resolution with the detail settings all the way down. I’ve bitten the bullet and retired the old trusty MacbookPro, enter now - the PC gaming rig. Dual cores of pure Intel grunt, slick and tacky cross-bred parts from a multitude of different vendors. Oh how she purrs! Let me put this into perspective; Granado Espada. 30-inch display. 2560 x 1600 pixels of resolution. Full detail settings. Enough said. No junkie could kick this addiction…
Check out Granado Espada for yourself and join the fun. It’s free to play! Feel free to abuse me on the Vivaldi server.