I normally am not the sort of person who likes session-centric gaming. More often than not, my favorite part of playing an MMO is the persistence of the world, feeling like I am living in another time or on another planet. Why is it, then that I'm having so much fun playing vindictus gold? 

I got the opportunity to play the game briefly during the Closed Beta test that ended August 24th, and I hate to say it, but I had a lot of fun. Could it be that my tastes have changed? Or is it simply that Nexon has provided such a fun experience that I forget that I can't scale the mountains and swim the seas?

Here are my impressions after playing the game during the Closed Beta test. Keep in mind that much of the game is not yet available for test, and they are still working out the bugs and the kinks. I was only able to choose between a melee dps and a tank class, and the character customization is not completely finished in the game.

Vindictus starts out with a in-story tutorial, where you play a member of the army tasked with bringing down a giant spider. The trouble is, the Giant Spider used to be the town's guardian, and someone, or something, has driven it mad. Life is tough, and despite the creature's shining record of service, you're going to have to deal with it -- permanently. You are sent up into a tower as an escort for an Oracle, a healer, who wants to reason with the great eight-legged beast -- evidently they were BFFs.

The climb up the tower gives you the perfect opportunity to learn how combat works in Vindictus, as the place is flooded with monsters. Combat is simplified through the use of a set of core commands: basic attack, strong attack, ranged throwing weapon (spear for the tank I was playing), a grab and a kick. These standard attacks can be combined to great effect, and I imagine the possibilities for combining abilities with other classes is also coming in the future.