~ Summary ~
If you like your RPG in a anime style games then your in for a treat. However, this game and Granado Espada - they are basically the same game run by 2 different companies. Sword of the new world servers & financial services are run by Gamerfirst for Europe & USA, while Granado Espada is ran by IAH games for primarily Singapore and Asia (inc Australia).

The other difference is the game patch numbers, the latest servers on Granada Espada are 5 - 6 issues ahead of Sword of the New World.

The PK (Player Kill) system can seem confusing, being called both PK and Baron. Baron also leads to Murderer status which means everyone can take a pop at you. That said you cant fall victim to a Baron/PK er until after family lvl 5 (roughly 3 family members to lvl 50) so you do have time to learn about it before being subjected to it, if you choose a Baron/PK server. There are servers that dont have the Baron/PK, but further research seems to indicate there are certain weapons that can only be made available in Baron mode.

~ Requirements ~
~~ Computer ~~
system requirements are here : http://swordofthenewworld.gamersfirst.com/requirem ents.php

I can say I run this on a broadband connection, and you really dont want to be running the game on anything less than that, it might be possible to play, but it will become gooey sticky. Lower graphics actually dont harm the look of the game any, but may produce lag and rather irritating jumpiness in game play. For a change a company has produced both a minimum and recommended system statistics that are rather accurate.

~~ Financial ~~
The game is free to download all though you can buy it on DVD from Amazon. I really wouldn't bother buying it. If you cant download it within a hour or 2, the chances are you wont have a very good time playing the game as your bandwidth will be used up and/or your connection will be too slow to play without nasty spikes.

Other than that, the game works on a micro transactional system. What this means is that you buy Gpoints and then use them in game to exchange for the in-game currencies or items only available from the premier items shop. Its completely possible to play the game for free completely, however you may get stuck at some points as I will explain later in game play.

~ Basic genre & style ~
The basic style is magic in the wild west, so more your traditional RPG MMORPG with some guns. However the ability to play 3 characters from your family at once in a team (your account is your family) gives a more unique experience than most, as you have the ability to interact in your family as well as your Squad (team) and Faction (Guild/clan). Later you get involved in more political agendas.

The ability to play upto 3 family members at once is called MCC (Multi-Character Control)

~ Basic Story ~
You play the part of a new family pioneering the new world of Granado Espada. As you progress you find dungeons, dangers and new allies you can add to your family after quests

~ Graphics ~
I have to admit this is one very very pretty game. The scenery is very artistic and it really gives you the feel of not maybe a real world but a very very artistic beautiful one. Graphics wise you really cant fault this game, there are very few (if any) graphical errors and the dresses move fantastically and realistically on the characters. For the guys some of the dress/outfits on the females is kinda revealing but that aside I know my teenager likes just talking to Angie in Queens gate as the game goes close in. I would like to say its realistic, but the thought of "Jiggle tech tonics" comes to mind as her chest moves a lot like loose jelly. Funny for the women, and Im sure some guys will get a kick out of it ;) Its not just that character that exhibits the "Jiggletechtonics" - most female characters do, especially basic elementalists!

~ Basic game play ~
The start tutorial is spot on, and definitely well worth playing. It takes you through all the basic things you will need to know playing the game from the MMC control through the xp/stance xp differences.

~~ Getting started ~~
The first part of the tutorial has you (your very first family member) on board a ship. You will during the course of the tutorial add 2 further members to your family before moving on to your first town Roboldeaux

~~ Family member classes ~~
Elementalist ~ pritty much like elementalists in other games. Elementalist's use stances of lightening, fire or Ice. You get 3 basic stances (blocks of skills) and can change between them by changing bracelets (ie you cant do lightening magic while wearing ice bracelets)

Fighter ~ Sword fighters are typical of the fighter genre in most games.

Scout ~ This is the healer. Its also the dagger master. I suggest having one of these in your group at all times with nothing in their hands, as that encourages them to heal automatically.

Musketeer ~ basically a rifle man. Can be expensive to run as bullets are expendable and can only be bought in bulk of 10,000 and bullets for a rifle dont fit a pistol.

Recruitable NPC's ~ as you play and your family completes quests they will on occasion get a character card for a NPC. These can be used once and cant be re-earned once used. Once used the NPC joins your family and can be teamed with other family members and levelled/stanced in the same way. Some NPCs are required for some family quests, and with a free barrack size of 9 that's when you start paying for extra slots via the premium shop.

~~ Movement & skills ~~
well everything is covered in the tutorial, but can still take getting used to. All movement is point and click and there's no usual WASD or arrow key movement. If you remember its more a team movement it doesn't take long to get used to at all. Each team member has a line on the keyboard for skills, and once you have got used to layouts and stuff playing becomes as beautiful as the game.

~~ Customisability ~~
Some people expect a certain amount of customisability in a game. A few of the windows are moveable.
~~~ Keys ~~~
There's no way to customise the layout of key macros or create your own. The game pretty much has the whole keyboard used up in one way or another, and once you got used to it, you wont want to change it.

~~~ Character ~~~
OK so all characters look the same. All female elementalists are blonde with the same face for example. Most customisation comes from new armour and buying costumes and wigs. The usual extra bits (earrings, bracelets, necklaces etc) exists and provide perks depending on the item in question. It can feel disheartening to start with seeing 2 elementalists in your barracks looking identical, however everything else makes up for that. If your willing to plug the cash in the possibilities are endless. If you don't, use the polishes to buy excellent armour from pioneer people. Its not unique, but the stats are often really good.

~~ Making a team ~~
OK so you can have 12 families in a Squad, and at any one point each family may have 3 characters on-line, so that will be a team of 36! Right clicking a family member from another family gets you a menu for trade, inviting to squad etc.

~~ AI behaviour ~~
This game is a persistent zone game with towns and outposts. This means you can go into a town and meet people, but you can also meet them in areas outside. you can zone between areas. Persistent means that the creatures spawn on a regular pattern and patrol. The AI is rather intelligent, following anyone who triggers their aggravation range (you'll see a little ! appear over their heads) There does appear to be a agro cap and creatures will loose interest eventually if you keep running! It also means the game is also good for "AFK"ing (leaving the characters logged into a zone while you are away) If placed appropriately a team can level up in a area quite well left on attack. However, that said, some of the AI have been programmed cleverly to run away at low health, often splitting afk teams or moving them to a heavier populated/spawn spot.

~ Similarities to other games ~
Because basically Granado Espada and Sword of the new world are fundamentally the same game Ill start with the differences between them. Swords is rather behind GE both in build and customer support. I've seen a LOT of complaints about lost G points, bad information and server outages with no information available at all. In fact a 2 day outage with not so much as a twitter update is the reason I ended up playing Granado Espada rather than Sword. To say the least I do not have the slightest confidence to spend any money at all testing the micro-transactional system with GamersFirst and basically now have left Sword to play the more up to date Granado Espada

~ Community - in-game behaviour - forums - wiki's and help ~
OK so Sword of the new world does have its own set of forums which, as long as you use the search function, do really well. HOWEVER having the "how to start" & "which server should I choose?" threads on boards you have to sign up to see is a bit stupid. Especially as on sign up you get asked what your family name is! You can have a family on each server if you really want to, so if you think you chose the wrong server just log into a different one at the login screens and start your family there. In game behaviour that I have seen has been disrespectful, but partially understandable with the loss of paid items and server outages and very poor communication form the server hosts. There's no profanity filter that I can see so you kinda get it in full force.

Granado Espada also has its own forums run by IAH which is a lot more informative and easier to look at. The community seems a lot more relaxed and nicer, even in PK. The odd swear word from players doesn't really mar the system, its no where near as horrible as the Sword of the New World.

Personally, If you were going to play this game I would probably advise you to play the Singapore version more (Granado Espada). Its a lot more reliable, better updated, well informed and generally a nicer atmosphere - but a lot of this would be on Swords too if GamerFirst actually took a very good look at their customer service and actually worked on fixing some of the blatant issues a lot of people have a problem with.

for Swords see the Gamer first website here : http://swordofthenewworld.gamersfirst.com

for Granado Espada visit IAHgames: http://ge.iahgames.com/3.4_Minisite/Granado%20Espa da_3.4_Minisite.html