| Review entitled 'Adopting an alien can be a mixed experience.' |  | Alien Adoption Agency is one of the oldest games in the free online role playing game market, created in 1999 the game has gone a long way while still maintaining its roots. Don't let the lackluster main page turn you away this game requires investigation into its deepest regions to fully appreciate it.
Graphics
Five years ago this game really suffered a lack of imagery, almost everything was text based even things which should have never been text in the first place, WAS text. Thankfully however the last few years have been kind to AAA with a major revamp in the graphics system and a lot more stylish flair dotted around almost all pages the game really comes into its own discovering a great feel for itself and the gameplay it has developed. Avatars are updated with cosmetic changes but not equipment which gives a certain amount of freedom to those who want to look just the way they want.
Fun
The core of Alien Adoption agency is difficult to analyze, at one point battling and the gym were the main focus in raising your statistics but now there is a whole plethora of different options and gameplay available for those willing to explode and learn, usually most of these are a different twist on similar systems. Look hard enough and you can find gambling, raising pets, exploring, studying and more. The battle system has one major flaw unfortunately, bots. Bots can be constructed by players to emulate an attackable player, this bot is not as effective nor as strong as a player and can often be beaten a few levels shy of its own level, they reward more Experience then a similar level player and have a 30 second 'respawn' rate, eventually a smart player can work out that creating/finding bots to attack is much more efficent and predictable for leveling them attacking players of unknown quantity. This effectively kills the PvP in Alien Adoption Agency.. in an attempt to improve the situation for players they took away one of the best aspects of the game.
Soundtrack
No soundtrack in this game i'm afriad!
tilt
As a previous player from many, many moons ago, it's nice to see AAA has progressed to where it has now. Unfortunately with the number of improvements it has brought around to itself it has also managed to hurt its base gameplay in many more ways then were good for it, the PvP requires no user interact and is literally a comparison of stats and luck, attack versus defense. The game also does not provide you without guidance or tools to get into one of its many other systems past battling and training which is a huge disappointment.
Community
The community is a somewhat young audience with the appeal of raising an alien in heart, the game lets you create a catchy saying whenever you do certain things, such as losing to a player, killing a player, stalemating with a player, most of these are offensive, rude or in bad taste with references to past historical dictators in large supply. Guilds are often the key to finding a mini-community of sorts that can really help players grow in social circles within the game, so overall quite a mixed barrel.
Customer Service
Community service was difficult to acquire with multiple queries requiring many weeks to answer, if any answer at all. The game helps guide you alot of the way with a great tutorial, FAQ and trouble shooting pages to help you through most of the problems you may have. Jail is also a place in game that detains those exploiting or causing trouble for others which is an excellent deterrent.
Performance
Performance was an overall good standard, with only a few slow turns during prime times and usually only very short in there duration. Graphics can be somewhat large on some sections especially in the hangman game which is required to load a rather large image for every incorrect choice you make, this however is a minor concern with most of the other ingame graphics being a respectable size and filesize.
Roleplaying
Roleplaying is usually greeted with ridicule from other players, it is not welcome in the mainstream chat, messageboard or game channels of the game, you can get a limited role playing experience in some guilds within the game, which may prove to be somewhat of a unique experience, roleplaying an alien in a human inspired society with guns, cars, casinos, spaceships and so on.
Value
Everything in the game is free of charge, you can use Bytes to subscribe to the game providing extra benefits including more motivation a resource that enables you to do more per day. Bytes can also be purchased in game from other players enabling the economy to support a premium account should you be able to raise/earn enough ingame currency per month.
UI
Another UI that can be adapted in its persentation and links but never really feels quite right, most sections feel "tacked" on, the game hasnt seen a major UI redesign in many years and this, unfortunately, shows when you're trying to navigate faster, some browser may also have issues with using the back/forward buttons which causes you to log out which leads to quite alot of frustration with it being such a difficult habit to break. |
| | Reviewer | | 
Valane
Last active : 19/11/2008 7:23pm |
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| | Review Scores | | | Graphics | 9 | | | Soundtrack | 5 | | | Community | 7 | | | Roleplaying | 4 | | | Performance | 8 | | | Customer | 7 | | | Fun | 7 | | | Value | 9 | | | UI | 6 | | | Tilt | 4 | |
Total Score
66 |
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