Aion looks amazing

I've been looking over Lylia's shoulder as she tests Aion with her beta access and I have to say... it looks AMAZING. Now that's what a game looks like! Not like a game like WAR, that looks like it was hacked together by some high school kids as a computer graphics project.

The "polish" that everyone praises is well deserved. With graphics at max quality, the game is smoother than WAR with fastest framerate, and it looks gorgeous. Gorgeous enough that I actually feel like walking around to explore the virtual world, instead of closing my eyes, holding my breath and rushing through the PVE content. We didn't realize how scarred we were by WAR until we exclaimed in surprise for being able to walk over a fence without getting impaled on it.

Graphics-wise: from what I can tell, the polygon count is actually lower in Aion than in WAR. They are just smarter with their implementation. E.g., better use of textures, various illusions and clever tricks to make the game look good. There are people who know what they are doing at work on this game. It might have also helped that they used the CryEngine for Aion. The visual depth of the environment is far better. Pretty clouds span the sky, buildings in the background, butterflies, fish in the river... it even started raining at one point without any noticable performance degradation. There's also Bloom for some of you junkies.

The game doesn't try to blow you away with sophisticated, resource-hungry graphics. It looks like there might have been some conscious thought put into deciding that some visuals are just too slow, so it's better to use faster alternatives. But they still managed to pull off a very cohesive environment that looks great. And that's what an interactive game should be. It should look great and run fast. There's no need to dick around with crazy particle effects as if you have something to prove, and consequently slaughter performance because the devs don't know what they are doing. Aion's environment is immersive, unlike how WAR reminds you how broken a game can be and how much software can suck every minute you play the game.

The music is fantastic (if you like the genre). Seamless transitions. Enter combat, and the background music gets more energetic. Exit combat, and the music transitions to a soothing, ambient piece from a wind instrument, piano or vocals. It's not music they whipped together by the developers calling a friend of a friend who happens to play an instrument. It's well produced music with an orchestra behind most of the pieces. The sound effects are great as well. Birds chirping, snappy spell animations and sound effects.

(Since I started writing this, Lylia must have mentioned at least 20 times how much she loves the music and how pretty the game is)

Interface is slick and looks well implemented and efficient. Windows and menus are fast and snappy. No noticable server-client lag. You can show the enemy cast bar, so I would assume that the latency is low enough to have them in the game. There is some weird occasional camera glitching that I can't put my finger on though.

Can't say much about how the combat is, since Lylia didn't get high enough for any meaningful combat. Can't tell if PVE is grindy either. 

What I can say for sure is, Aion looks like a game I want to try. I want to play it now! F***k you WAR, you uninspired jimmy-rigged piece of garbage. Can't believe I let you string me along since Beta. I'll be pre-ordering Aion and the second the N.A. servers go live I'm there!