The good point is that it will encourage you to team up with other characters that are stringer in certain areas than your own character. This is the real basis of the game, to team up with other characters to hunt and slay monsters, earn experience points and find treasure along the way. This then has a direct relation on the strength of your character and the game will challenge the stronger characters as the game proceeds.

The main focus of Everquest is the ability to team up with other players along your adventures but this isn't as easy as you may have first thought, especially when you are a new lone player. To request to join a hunting group is made easier as you will be able to see a list of players in the vicinity and ask them directly if you can join there group or if someone will join forces with yourself.

The control pad for the PS2 does a very good job of letting you play Everquest without too much hassle, thing will be made much easier if you have a USB keyboard so you can communicate with other players far more easily. Once you have joined a group you will still need to reply to messages promptly. If you stick it out with the control pad you may find you will get you messages across too slowly, especially in the midst of battle when communication is essential.

Fighting in Everquest is a turn based affair, if there is a group of you, you will each take it in turn to have a slash as the monster and the monster will usually go for the weakest member of the team, often though that character will probably have the deadliest attack. In this case the healers must work very hard to keep the weakest character from dying and the melee classes must work hard keep the enemies focus on them. There is a sweet spot when fighting, you will find a distance that will let you unleash you attack perfectly and take as little damage as possible on the retaliation. If you are hunting alone it is a pretty boring affair, you will attack the monster and the monster will attack you. You can use recovery items or spells to regain your hit points. Should you dye you will loose money and you experience points will accrue experience debt, this means your experience points will increase much slower than normal for a while.

Everquest Online Adventures does have one thing missing that the PC version of the game included. The trades and crafts of each player, this was a great piece of thinking because for some it could take the emphasis off fighting and on to trading goods like armour and food etc. This could be a good earner for characters who where good at these trades, plus it was a nice little earner on the side. Unfortunately the PS2 version doesn't have this so the game does revolve around fighting and teaming up with other characters. The good thing is that the combat system is very solid and it should be because this is the main part of the game not to mention the only real part of the game.

Some people may find Everquest Online Adventures boring, especially if you have never played this sort of game in the past. Seasoned players may find Everquest on the PS2 quite refreshing because of its simplicity and the speed of play which is much faster than the original PC version and other games of its type. If people do give it a chance they might find themselves falling into the whole social hunting system and getting hooked. You will not get anything from Everquest Online Adventures shirt term, but long term and with a lot of time and effort playing with others it will excel and reward for all the hours spent in front of the TV.

8.0 out of 10