Zephyrus of the Anemoi

UPDATE: Parallel Kingdoms has received several updates since the writing of this post. Many (if not all) of the issues listed below have been resolved.

Seriously.

It doesn’t follow your movements using live GPS updates yet.

Enemies auto-attack you and are clustered together, which means if you open the game in the wrong spot you’re screwed, especially because the GPS doesn’t auto-update.

You have to physically move around the real world to find stuff to do, which is fine if you could a) do certain game activities from anywhere, b) fight any enemy onscreen, not just those right next to you (only could fight one thing the first time I played), and c) be chauffered around everywhere you go.

Crashes all the time. Also gets an error saying the network is too slow or something like that, even with full 3G bars.

Maybe if I lived in a densely populous city with quality public transportation, but I don’t. I’ll give the next version a shot to see if the stability improves, but for now, this game is only out there as a beta test and I’m not getting paid to test it.

The new location-aware MMO for iPhone, Parallel Kingdom, became available in the iTunes Store late last night. For those that don’t already know, this app is designed to allow you to play a large-scale RPG based on where you currently are. Further, the game was simultaneously released for the iPhone and the Android OS, so the number of potential players will only grow as time passes. Allowing you to attack nearby players and gather treasure, and even talk to other people, it’s the first MMO that allows you to actively interact with the world, because you’re already standing in it.

Anyway, it’s almost impossible to explain, but it’s free to download, so check it out and have fun. Hope to see you out there.

And then kill you.