EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey

This area contains six treasures, each squirreled away in an ante-chamber, and protected by enchanted tailor's mannequins and spider-bodied creatures. It's impossible to get a handle on the difficulty of these zones, because we've all been buffed to hell and back. For information, the zones will scale, from 50 or 60 to 80, to suit the level of the first person to enter them. Take heed, mentors - enter the instances in the right order.

Najena's Hollow is our next stop. The entrance to this place is dazzling, an excellent piece of design by Noel Walling. If Lower Guk's platforming silliness was Super Mario Bros, Najena's Hollow is Bowser's Castle; a huge inverted citadel with a strong theme of the underground volcano. It's the only zone so far that deserves an introductory cinematic; and it doesn't just give you clues about your destination, it's hugely impressive.

To enter Lady Najena's home, there's a set of puzzles to lower the lava flow, and expose the huge corkscrew staircase that takes you into her laboratories. Well, I say "puzzle" - in fact, it's four switches guarded by mobs. As far as challenging interactive puzzles go, EverQuest II is no Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. Once inside (a longer process than I'm making it sound), the area has huge smithies, and mesh floors that carry you over a relentless lava flow. This leads people to suggest that this might be a destination for the crafting quest chains. Another coy refusal to answer from our tour guide leaves us dissatisfied, but I'm quickly distracted by something that sounds like the quacking sound from Whigfield's 90's hit, Saturday Night. "Is that a duck?" I ask, instantly regretting it. It turns out that it wasn't a duck.

The Hollow is populated by fire elementals, as you'd expect - but fire loves air, and there's a heavy presence of Djinn-like Prexian air elementals, too.

Our final destination is a Void zone, the Palace of Ferzhul. It manages, in terms of open-sky living hell, to outdo Najena's Hollow graphically. There's something about voids, and I'm sure this isn't just me, that makes them innately awesome. In both the sense that they inspire awe, and the sense that they make you go, "Oh man, I'm totally inside a void. Awesome". Our guide claims we're lucky to see it - it hasn't been working for the previous tours.

After months of online development, the void storyline will find resolution in the Shadow Odyssey. Even the monsters look more substantial, more serious, here - the Brutes guarding the opening area just look three times as deadly and awesome as anything else we've seen. Then again, you can put a skeleton in as much snap-on armour as you like - whatever that turns out to mean - and you still won't be able to stop imagining it saying "nyah, you broke my staff" in a nasal whine. Skeletons always look a bit too happy. These guys couldn't show pleasure if they tried, and they're all the better for it.

The Gods are trickling back into Norrath, too, with two more turning up on the God Bus from exile: The current Prime Healer, the odd-headed manorexic Rodcet Nife, and his embarrassed predecessor, Anashti Sul. Anashti didn't just huff off in a strop when mortals entered their realm like all the other Everquest gods, she was voted into oblivion after bringing undeath to Norrath. It'll be interesting to see how two returning Prime Healers get on, especially if they have to share a flat. To quote Family Guy: I smell a sitcom!