With no levels and a dynamic martial-arts development system it seems that China is better at everything except making people look different from each other.
First thing I did in the character creator was changing my sex from female to... female? Turns out that the default character wasn't female, he's just chinese. Otherwise the graphics are good for what they are and the game plays very smoothly.
Once you start the game you're thrown into the water - you don't know what you're supposed to do. That's partially because of awkward translations and partially because AoW isn't a WoW clone. Grinding on mobs doesn't help you and you have to allot which skills to improve over time: Eve Online: Feudal China Edition. The big difference between AoW and Eve is that you spend much less time doing absolutely nothing in the latter.
You can chose between 8 martial art schools and your choice will determine most of your initial effectiviness in combat. Some of the schools have prerequisite skills to join, like guilds in Morrowind. Making the choice on your school doesn't limit you to its set of abilities however, as you can spy on other schools and steal their skills. Fucking cool? Fucking cool.
One of the best things in AoW is that they start with this whole fantasy feudal china setting and develop from there, instead of the tried and true "start from WoW" formula. As a consequence you can fly, run up walls, spring across water and lots and lots of crazy physics shit. Your abilitly to fight ios based on how you synergize the abilities you have and the game doesn't hold your hand in that respect at all. *YOU* have to figure out how to counter the incoming kick and what combination of punshes to bring down onto your opponent. You can and will make bad decisions and that is awesome.
Talking about bad decisions, prepare your anus because AoW isn't for carebears and Sir Grindalots. You will be attacked in towns, in the wilderness and even if you're logged out you stay in the world and can be kidnapped by players. There are no tangible consequences of losing a fight in the open, but if you PK and get captured by a bounty-hunting player, it's prison time for you. But you can break out.
Another cool feature is controlled PvP. When players are running high level dungeons, the game polls players to join the same instance as enemies. That means you have the ability to wreck someones dungeon crawl and conversely they must fight players to PvE. It goes without saying that my man rod is so hard now that I use it to write these words.
The best items in the game are all crafted, most people won't have the heart to devote the time into mastering their craft though. The game has what can only be described as china level of grind.
By the way there seems to be a metric shitton of Life Skills available, from Music to Painting, from Begging to Mining. You'll have your hands full. Some of the skills like music can provide your group with buffs if you're good at the guitar hero mini-game.
Talking of which, the game is full of copyright infringing minigames, Bejeweled, Guitar Hero, you name it. Even the group training sessions reek of things you've done before. Some of these may be cool if you like meditating or just killing some time, but that's not really my cup of tea.
Therefore:
Graphics:
Succeeds at looking cinese
Gameplay:
Unique and quirky
Originality:
Confusing
WoW Clone:
Nope
PvP:
Open or voluntary faction
Risk:
There are some risks for the attacker
Jet Li Splash: -
