Sword Art Online...

[wolfie2kX 528]

It's a new (at least, new in the US) Anime show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim/Toonami show on Saturday night.

 

So what's it about? It's the ULTIMATE in hard core gaming. The game takes place in a fictional world of sword fighting... The main difference between this game and any other MMORPG or online ARPG you might have played - this one is a virtual reality game. You put on a helmet in the real world and wind up in the game.

 

But the game's been rigged by the mad creator of said game - once you're in, you can't log out. DOH! Furthermore, if you happen to try to remove the headgear, it will zap you with a lethal dose of microwaves cooking your brain.

 

The game is also HARDCORE.. Should you die, the headgear zaps you in the real world and you're dead there too..

 

How whacked is that?

 

[Aegis 256]

A small hint of dot hack would be my first impression if based on description alone. I've heard of Sword Art Online, but other than fanart I stumble across, knew nothing else about it. I may give this a try.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Yeah... The artistic style seems to be similar to .Hack as well. The only hitch - it's on at 2am on Cartoon Network...

 

There was one fairly amusing thing that happened in the first episode. The dungeon master gave everyone a small mirror. This made everyone look like they really were in real life. There was one somewhat amusing scene where this guy was getting off on the attention this other character - apparently a girl - was giving him before the mirrors came out. He was kind of shocked when his character turned out to be a guy.. DOH! So it's not all serious.

 

There are 25 episodes in the first season and it's fairly recent. Given the epicness of the task - 100 levels - I'm guessing they will have plenty of fodder to go at least that many episodes. The first season came out in 2012 - so it's still an ongoing series.