Whenever you want to dream of a place where you can meet druids, paladins, knights and mythological creatures, fight in shiny armors or wear the cape of a sorcerer, go to the Tibian continent. Where's that? In Tibia, one of the oldest MMORPGs created in Europe. You will solve riddles, receive quests from other characters and turn yourself step by step into a powerful mage or a fierce warrior. You only have to create an account on the game's site and then you're ready for a fantastic journey. So let's see what you should expect from the game, shall we?

After creating an account on Tibia's website, you can access the servers through the game client, by entering the account number and the password provided through e-mail.

The next step you should take would be to launch the game client. After the login takes place, the game will let you create a character. You can select from different types of characters like citizen, hunter, mage, etc. I advise you to carefully choose the class, because it will influence you. So you've logged in... When you do this for the first time, you will be greeted with a screen offering some tips on how to control your character, information on different marks, signs and buttons.

The main window is made up of three parts, the console, the game interface and the character controls. I like the menu, because you can move the buttons up and down on the right side of the screen. Your character can be simply moved by left clicking wherever you want to move it. If you encounter a player that has a skull mark underneath the name, it means that he has been involved in some violence, so you can kill him. To do this, right click on him and select "attack". Don't worry, you won't be marked, unless you do the aforementioned action on unmarked persons.

When you get out from the temple (where you encounter the first NPC, who can heal you by typing "help" in the in-game console) the game will offer you some directions, telling you about the most important places in the village. First things first, I went to the academy, as the game told me! I've noticed that the time lapses here on a normal course: day is followed by night, when the lamp posts get lit up. At night, your visual field seems to lower, while the areas near the street lamps or any other source of light are in lighter colors.

If you right click on an item, like a tree, you will receive information related to it. I went into the Academy, where I looked on a bookshelf, which gave me some directions on using the console and how to interact with other players, especially NPCs.

I entered the Academy's dungeon and the game warned me that in underground areas I could bump into some nasty creatures, which could be a problem for an inexperienced user. Although some beds were placed in the dungeons, the game won't let you use them. Why are they put there?

Ok, so I finally encountered a "nasty creature"... maybe it can be called a pest?! I found a rat which tasted the tip of my blade! This gave me some experience points, which can in time improve my character's abilities. Also, the game advised me that I should search the corpses of dead monsters for valuable items. Yaaay!!! The rat had a coin!!! What would a rat do with money?! Anyway, it doesn't matter at this moment, I put the coin in my bag and started to search for some more "monsters" to kill... I noticed that the character has a number of arrows and when they're gone he can only hit monsters with his melee weapon, so if your rats or anything else run from you, go get 'em! By the way, the NPC called Seymour will give you a quest to kill some rats and for every rat you kill he will give you some coins.

If you want to look for some items in your inventory, don't look for a button, don't try any keyboard shortcuts you know from other games, you will have to right click on the bag and its contents will show up. I think the character is limited to an amount of items, because if you right click on anything in your bag and then choose "look", it will tell you how much that thing weighs.

Be careful in the underground, because if you find a fire and an energy field, they can kill you. I made this mistake: I entered the flame and it continuously took hitpoints from me, even after I went for a long distance from it. Here I also found a teleporter, a blue blob which will carry you to different places. Through it, I found a chamber where I could pull some levers and creatures went out from their cages. I read on the sign located near the levers that you can fight them. I got killed here by a bug!!! When you get killed, you will be revived by the "gods" and you will resume your journey. Actually, you will be sent back at the beginning. So I went back to the academy, where I opened some books and read them, which gave me some tactical information, learned something about the orcs, and read a fairytale about a gnome. Here you can find out more about the mythology behind the game, how the world was created, which gods did that, etc. I tried to buy something, but I didn't have any coins, I really would've liked the game more if it gave me money when I started it, at least a few coins!

I think Tibia has much more to offer, so you should try it out, although it doesn't look like a game from 2007, more like one from 1997. Maybe the mythology, or characters will turn you addicted to it, who knows? Don't forget to log out before quitting the game! By the way, you can't do that if you're fighting, so don't try to run off from a battle by logging out!

The Good

Tibia is an old game and despite that I've seen many users on the server where I got connected. It is good for those who don't have expensive computers, as the game could be run on a PII at 400 Mhz with no problems. All you need is a good Internet connection.

The Bad

The graphics are the most problematic thing in this game. I understand it is 10 years old, but the game could have been improved.

The Truth

The game can be addictive, if you don't mind the poor graphics quality and you're interested only in the fantasy behind it. There are many other MMORPGs that can beat this game very easily.

Here are some screenshots of Tibia in action: