Occasionally, an MMO comes along that threatens to dethrone the reigning champ of online gaming, World of Warcraft. Aion is one of those games.

A new MMORPG by NCSoft, makers of Guild Wars, City of Heroes/Villains, and, er, LoveBeat, Aion released to much fanfare earlier this fall. Is there room for Aion in the swollen MMORPG market? Will it make room for itself by knocking WoW right off its pedestal? Does every MMORPG need to be compared to WoW? Allow us to clue you in before you start snatching up the entire Jinx! Aion t-shirt collection.



The world of Atreia has been almost literally torn apart by the Epic Cataclysm. From space, the planet looks like the discarded remains of a Galactus-sized devoured apple. Figuratively, it's already there. The two playable races have split off into rival factions, despite having a terrible enemy in common. The Elyos live in Elysea, the lower half of Atreia, where they are beautiful and bathed in light. The pale Asmodians inhabit the upper half of Atreia in darkness. I expected their positions on the planet to be reversed (the heavenly Elysium on the top, the hellish Asmodae on the bottom) and that was one thing that kept gnawing at me whenever the game made mention of it. Maybe I'm just too used to Western theological conventions, but it was one small design choice that mentally took me out of the game, briefly-especially considering how Western the light with wings/dark and hairy with claws and wings dichotomy is.



Further complicating the conflict, Aion has a third unplayable race, the Balaur. As opposed to the Elyos and Asmodians, the Balaur are pure evil. A blight upon Atreia, the Balaur were originally created by the god Aion to rule the planet's people. After they became power-obsessed, created the Empyrean Lords to protect AionAtreia from them. The Balaur were sealed in the Abyss, the unstable area between Elysea and Asmodae. As you can imagine, Atreia did not find eternal peace, and the Balaur are back with a vengeance.

Rather than bring Halo 4 to life, Bungie announced last year that it would be serving fans a Halo 3 single-player expansion pack rather than a true sequel. Over time, Halo 3: ODST has evolved into a full-fledged, full-priced title that demands to be played on its own merits. Halo players might notice a little something missing, however: there's no Master Chief in this one, folks.



Instead of donning the hallowed helmet of everyone's favorite space marine, you'll be playing as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (yes, that is where the ODST comes from) known as "the Rookie." The Rookie is a lone UNSC soldier protecting New Mombasa in the East African Protectorate (what was formerly Kenya). He's weaker, slower, and more vulnerable than MC, so expect to spend a significant amount of time in cover, strategizing, rather than running in guns blazing and straight up kicking a Jackal in the face.



The game boasts a nerd's delight of a voice cast, the likes of which we haven't seen since C&C3. Three of your space marine teammates will be voiced by Firefly/Serenity alums, including Nathan Fillon (Buck), Adam Baldwin (Dutch) and Alan Tudyk (Mickey). Not to be outdone by the men, Battlestar Galactica is well-represented by Tricia Helfer, who plays Dare, an ONI agent in charge of the squad. Something tells us Cortana won't hold a candle to her. And that something is hotness. Brace yourself for this trivia fact: in a rare move for this industry, Nathan Fillon and Tricia Helfer were actually in the same room, doing their voice acting at the same time. It is unknown what kind of force field Bungie constructed around their studios to prevent the world from exploding upon this awesome meeting.



ODST takes place before the events of Halo 3, at about the same time as the end of Halo 2. Players finishing Halo 2's campaign were left with images of Earth under attack, and ODST tells the story of how humanity defended it. The game features weapons, vehicles, etc. from Halo 3, an anachronistic move (to fit in with the time table it should feature assets from Halo 2) that has some die-hard fans upset. We have a feeling that once they get into this game, they'll be having too much fun to care about continuity.