In the Beginning

Hooked, like a fish!

Picture it: A Tuesday morning (or it was) two weeks or so ago. World of Warcraft is down for its weekly maintenence. I'm trolling around for something to occupy my time and I find this link to a free MMO I've never heard of called Wizard101.

I click the download button and am pleasantly surprised when I hear the 'ding' letting me know the download is complete less than 10 minutes later. I fire it up, just to check it out.

What's this? A wizened old fellow in a smashing wizard hat and robe wants me to take a personality test? This had better not be a cleverly disguised pick-up game. Now I get to make my avatar. I've seen better character generators but this certainly isnt the worst. Truth be told, City of Heroes ruined that for anybody. Anyway, I make my girl with purple hair and a sharp eyed gaze. No dopey smile has ever graced any of my avatars.

I push the Finish button and am transported to the spire where earlier said fellow awaits me. A tutorial, on how not to fail. I move forward with some trepidation. Combat was very unexpected. It's a card system, like Magic: The Gathering. I am again pleasantly surprised. My expectations were somewhere in the range of a frenetic key punching type combat engine where He Who Drinks the Most Redbull Wins.

The few rounds of combat go pretty quickly and I actually like a few of the spell graphics tossed out, most noteably the Pirate. Still though, I can see that the graphics are very cartoon-y. I wasnt sure if I was going to like that.

I finish the tutorial and am opened up to a whole new gaming world to explore.