A few weeks ago I decided to give Rift a try and I’ve been having a lot of fun. I’m playing it casually by myself whenever I have some free time so I’m only level 11. Rift does pretty much what you expect an MMO to do these days. It has a few tricks though that make it a unique and worth checking out.

First of all I’m really enjoying the soul system. At the beginning of the game you are asked to pick an archetype like Mage, Rogue or Warrior. Each of these choices is just the foundation for your character though. Based on your choice you get access to a bunch of different “Souls” each with their own skills and powers. You can slot any three of these souls to build your own custom class.

For example I chose Mage during character creation and then for my three souls I picked Necromancer, Dominator and Stormcaller. Each of these souls has its own skill tree full of abilities. The Necromancer soul is a pet based class that has me summoning an undead warrior to fight for me. The Stormcaller is very DPS focused with a bunch of cool direct damage spells. I tossed the Dominator in to give me some crowd control and support spells. So far it has been a great mix and a lot of fun to play.

The other part of Rift that I really like is, well the Rifts. These incursions from other elemental planes are always tearing holes in the sky and dropping monsters down without warning. Last night for example I was minding my own business just trying to collect some wolf steaks when a Rift opened up right over my head. Pretty soon the ground around me had turned from grass into black rock shot through with veins of lava. Next, giant fire lizards started pouring out of a burning hole in the sky. In no time the other players around me had all rallied together and we had formed a group to fight these assholes off. It was a crazy hard fight and we closed the Rift but not before a group of these fire lizards had escaped out into the countryside. So after we closed the Rift we had to go hunt down this raiding party and kill them!

We all got rewarded for the effort but honestly the reward for me was an organic experience that I had not expected to have last night. I had just planned on grinding out a few quests but the world had other plans and I was happy to go along with them. For me this has been the real draw of the game.

Beyond that, Rift is just a very polished and well executed MMO. I actually started playing it before I even knew that we’d be advertising it. So it’s sort of fortuitous that I can tell you how much fun I’m having with it and then direct you to their free trial. I highly recommend giving it a shot.

-Gabe out