After seeing a number of those World of Warcraft commercials featuring prominent stars such as Mr. T, William Shatner, Verne Troyer, and Jean Claude Van Damme, I was left wondering if Stephen Colbert played any MMO's himself. I know he mentioned he used to be some sort of Dungeons and Dragons nerd in his youth, so it wouldn't be surprising, but I did play a MMO today that I know Colbert never would.

It's called The Chronicles of Spellborn.

You may be thinking why, probably not, but maybe. Why wouldn't Stephen Colbert play this game? I mean, it looks somewhat decent, right? Truth is, after seeing all those WoW commercials, I'm thoroughly convinced that Hollywood's top talent just wouldn't give a “freemium” (sub-if-you-REALLY-want-to) MMO a chance. Nay, these big names are too...big for that. That wasn't the reason why Stephen Colbert wouldn't play TCOS Gold though...

The Chronicles of Spellborn Gold also has bears...lots of bears.

Confused? Perplexed? Somewhat interested in the rest of this article? Read on about my first few hours in Acclaims next attempt in the MMO market as I lace up my boots, put on some camo, and knife me some four footed omnivorous grizzlies in my own The Chronicles of the Bear Slayer.

Creating my Bear Slayer took a little longer than expected; TCOS Gold surprised me by having a somewhat deep-ish character creator. I've been playing quite a few of these free2play MMO's over the last few weeks, and this is the first time I was presented with more than two options for hair, three options for faces, and eyes ranging from absurdly big to looking like my toon was long overdue for his next “fix”. Don't get too excited though, this isn't City of Heroes. TCOS may have more than what you're used to, but it's nothing worthy of an award. Not that it matters much, as in most loot driven games, as you're initial look will only last until you find that next shiny piece of armor or helm.