RYL: Path of the Emperor competes against MMO’s like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Everquest II, and Lineage II. In comparison, you might say that RYL: Path of the Emperor does an OK job, but not a great job.

Like other MMOs there is a monthly fee, and although you do get a month free with purchase of the game you will need a credit card for activation. You’ll need to do some updating, of course, before you can get started. You will also want to take a read through the RYL walkthrough, or at least print it out and keep it handy. You can find the walk through via the small pre-loader that starts every time you run RYL, or by visiting the official RYL website: www.ryl.net/downloads.asp. Don’t worry, the walkthrough is an Adobe PDF and it’s only 20 pages long. The manual that is included with the game, by the way, is about 130 pages. The game also includes a paper map and has a great little automap complete with grid coordinates that works wonders during quests.