Order & Chaos Online: A 'lite' version of World of Warcraft

Massively multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft (WoW) can eat up vast amounts of your time as they tempt you into their virtual worlds with endless quests that promise ever more power and wealth. Order And Chaos Online (Mac App Store link) is a little different, though, as it was originally released on iOS and takes a more casual approach to online adventuring.

The game is very much modelled on WoW, with Humans and Elves joining together as the Order faction, while Orcs and Undead form the rival Chaos faction. The graphical style is similar too, depicting a brightly coloured cartoon landscape filled with floppy-eared elves, muscular humans and shambling undead. I'm not wild about this style of cartoon graphics, but the vast success of WoW ensures that this is the way most people expect their MMORPGs to look these days.

And, of course, once you've chosen your race you can then decide whether to play as a warrior, rogue, wizard or monk—the latter being the only vaguely original element in the game, as you can train your monk in a variety of combat and magical skills that combine elements from other classes.

Like most MMORPGs, Order and Chaos Online allows you to join groups and guilds with other players. Unfortunately, owners of the Mac version of the game can't play on the same servers as iOS users, and the Mac servers don't seem to be terribly busy—however, the Mac version is a recent release, so hopefully activity will pick up. It's a shame, though, that Chaos and Order offers in-app purchases that tempt you to cough up extra cash for additional weapons and other items. We're old fashioned enough to think that this goes against the spirit of role-playing games—as well as being a bit dodgy in a game that will appeal to children too.