Expansion packs to any game are pretty much the same in concept. Better graphics, new content, new quests, new functions and many other things. An expansion for a MMORPG is slightly different as it is added content that might not be aimed towards everyone. Alien Invasion is such an expansion. Make no mistake, the expansion can be played by all levels and play styles but more on this later.

Here's how it works. With the added content of organization (or guild) housing, the players can now create whole cities of their own including player shops. These cities function both as player housing but also the setting for the core content of the expansion; the aliens stage attacks on these cities, forcing players to repel the invasions and defend their cities. Very cool stuff. If an organization has one level two player and one level two hundred player online, the AI will send a few aliens which are in the level two range and in the level two hundred range, so in this sense, the
expansion can be played by everyone. Also worth mentioning is the stunning new array of decor available. You can create anything from swimming pools to huge lobbies in the new houses. The look and feel of this is great and adds to the already immersive gameplay!

But wait, there's more! If necessary, other organizations can come to the rescue and help each other out to distribute the load so to speak. This adds new ways of interaction between orgs and its a great way to fight alongside somebody whom you previously might not have.

There are several waves of aliens that are thrown at you and your organization. These waves continue until the mothership appears, and let me tell you right here and now, it's huge and looks amazing. I was standing there in awe feeling like the guy on the street in the movie Independence Day. Looking up and seeing this gigantic monstrosity of a ship floating over the skyscrapers, coming closer.. closer. There are also several patrolling
alien ships flying all around it in formations. The whole ordeal is really something the first few times you see it.

If you do well in the onslaught, you'll get invited into the mothership to fight more aliens and the final boss of the attack. When you beat him into a bloody pulp, you get awarded with powerful items or perks of various usages. There is also new experience system, AI experience, which can award you many things.

The expansion pack is also chock full of other features, such as social clothing which I tried out as it looks both goofy and cool on the characters compared to much of the older clothing gfx, social pets and alien infested dungeons just to mention a few. These pets are new kinds of leets, such as Athleets, Calculeets and many others. A new function even makes it possible for owners of these pets to make their pets fight each other. They serve no purpose outside the social aspect of it and in my opinion, its good that Funcom also focuses on this side of the game and not just throw alot of grind content at the player.

In terms of upgrades to graphics, I didn't see too many improvements over the old Shadowland graphics. However, AI adds so much more of it. With the introduction of organization housing, organizations can now equip their houses with a large assortment of furniture. I was able to have a peek inside a large organization house and the stuff you can put in there is nothing short of amazing. They had this large pool area with beautiful marble tiles around it and recreational areas with sun chairs at either sides. There were tables and other furniture placed around the pool so it looked just like a real life hotel swimming pool. Other places such as the reception area was a large dome with tables and chairs, lots of beautiful flora and marble floor.

As already mentioned, the alien mothership looks absolutely amazing, just because f its sheer size. The aliens themselves are interesting with several different graphics for the different classes such as alien scout and guard. The scouts looked suspiciously like one of the zerg models in StarCraft, albeit a much much larger model. They are quite huge, making you appear small compared to them. All in all they are fairly complex and nice to look at.

Not too much new added here. The aliens sounds fairly standard with grunts and "alien noises". The motherships have this cool sound of something impossibly large while the lesser ships have much more discreet sounds. The overall quality of the sound is good and the general atmosphere the it tries to convey is ok. Nothing out of the ordinary, but what's there, works.

The overall quality of the new sounds are good and complements the content they are associated with rather well.

The expansion does not add anything particularly new to the ui (user interface) but in my opinion is nice UI compared to the old one. Buttons for inventory, wearables, character sheet and other things are laid out
on both sides of the screen near the left and right bottom. You can choose how many windows you want on the screen and you can move them wherever you wish, although I tend to stick to the default placements in AO. The UI is clearly designed to be a minimalistic UI but which can be expanded greatly if the player wishes. All in all a sleek UI. Combined with the new menu-based chat system implemented some time ago, the wholeness of it looks great.

This being an expansion pack, you should already have played Anarchy Online or at least been somewhat familiar with it to appreciate the content offered here. Although the content is said to be for all levels and you don't necessarily need to be in a guild to value it, I can safely say that it can't hurt. And by that notion I have to classify this expansion as an expansion primarily for the organized clans. If you look at the main content, the organizational housing and the subsequent attacks, you understand that being affiliated with an organization helps you greatly in playing with the new content offered. What this does is limit casual players or soloers a little when it comes to availability. However, when Funcom gave me a (great) tour, they assured me that it was doable to play it solo and you can participate in the attacks even if you are not a part of any organization, so all hope for the casual gamer is certainly not lost.

To reach a conclusion, I am pleasantly surprised by the way this raid-like content are presented. It's not just set a target and organize for the kill. The affair takes another approach, where you the player actually becomes the target, the hunter becomes the hunted. This is interesting and pretty unique in a MMORPG and best of all, it works.

The replayability might lessen somewhat over time, but that's the fate most content in any game faces, especially MMORPGs. Funcom has released a pack that can in many ways be seen as essential to have to appreciate the game, and that should be the goal of any expansion pack.