The Sword of the New World: Granado Espada review

Swishy hair, swashbuckling swordplay, extremely tight bodices, buoyant boobs, and 17th century aristocrats that dual-wield pistols welcome you to North America's colonial period, as seen through the eyes of Korean game developers.

Sword of the New World: Granado Espada features a new take to the old standard of massively multiplayer online games with plenty of animals to kill, lots of letters to deliver, and a gazillion little children who've lost their mother/sister/brother/sheep. But, instead of having to either go solo or hunt for a group, in SotNW you command a squad of three characters right from the start.

That's right, three. Right away, we could create four different classes - with assurances that we would be able to expand our "family" to up to 14 - and after a brief tutorial, were able to bring three characters in right away.

The class choices are fairly standard: there are fighters, elementals, scouts and wizards to start out and various other classes waiting to be discovered in game. Each class must choose a "stance" to level in - basically creating a specific skill set.