I've been playing Horizons recently. Well, by 'playing' what I really mean is I've had the game client running on my PC, and over the course of several hours I've spent more time looking at my PDA (running Solitaire) than actually playing the game. It's not so much that the game is boring, or that there's nothing to do, it more a case of there's lots and LOTS of time where your avatar is automatically performing repetitive actions, such as harvesting resources, fighting monsters, running from one place to another and so on.

There seems to be an enormous time sink in this game. For example (and I timed this) it takes 4:17 (that's four minutes, seventeen seconds) for the game to load from the moment you hit the "play now" button on the website login - the button which actually launches the local physical client. This is on a fairly speedy PC with a 1Mb internet connection. These extreme loading times also make appearances at other points in the game although they vary so wildly
I'm not entirely sure what's going on.

For example, there's a great function called 'Recall', which lets you automatically teleport from wherever you are back to the last 'Shrine' you used. The problem? If you use the recall function in sight of your chosen shrine, it can still take up to two or three minutes for the game to reload the world - even though you could have run the distance in 15 seconds.

Graphics
For a next-gen MMO game Horizons certainly looks the part - well, almost. It's a very pretty game, with an almost cartoony feel to the textures and model designs. Monsters look suitably scary (or not, depending), and the world engine is certainly state of the art, with an enormous draw distance without evident level of detail problems.

And here we run into the loading problems again. The game streams data to you in real time, loading up the necessary graphics and models as you go. The problem is it can't seem to keep up, so the most common sight is another player wearing their grey "default" graphics. If they stay still long enough you'll see the individual clothing/armour component models load and display, along with the textures they've chosen to individualise themselves.

To progress through the game - like most others - you take tasks from NPCs within the game. And these NPCs also suffer from the 'delay until loaded' syndrome that's frighteningly obvious when playing. Here's a tip if you're looking for an NPC: go to where you think an NPC is, then stand still for two minutes to give the game time to catch up, realise where you are and load the NPCs into the world.

Content
There is an enormous amount of content in this game, enough to keep most people happy for a long time to come. The problem again is that it's fractured and often extremely repetitive. To progress through the game you choose a 'school' and join it. This school will let you make certain items or use certain items, and the more you make or use, the more experience you get.

You can switch schools any time you like and start learning new skills that you might like. And you loose access to all the skills you gained from the previous school. You don't lose the skills, you just can't make use of them anymore.

It was shocking at one point when I'd laboured hard to gain enough experience to make myself some armour and a weapon, only to find that to learn a healing spell I had to give up the ability to wear the armour I already had on, and I had to get rid of the bow I'd been using to kill bunnies with.