My first look at Fallen Earth by Icarus Studios. Man what a crappy game this is. Ok don't get me wrong the game has value it just needs a ton of polish. I have a feeling this game was pushed out the door before the developers were done. Since its release its been patched like every few days. The graphics are sub-par for today's graphics in MMOs, but hey I can play it at 1920x1200 so its not all bad I guess. Also who knows maybe they are playing to let the graphics hardware grow into the game to make it future proof as much as possible.
This game, Fallen Earth, has an interesting idea behind it. You play a clone (perfect excuse as to why you look a lot of like to other players). The earth is in ruins from a virus outbreak and nuclear war. Settlements of the people who survived are spread out over the land. You start out inside Hoover Damn, one of the surviving settlements, and are lead by a helper who is trying to set you free from the place. It’s a very good tutorial mission and you learn a lot from it and its goes into the story for the game. The ending of the mission also goes out with a bang! Literarily you drive a bomb out of the damn and get blown up from doing so. What do you mean you die at the beginning? Don't worry remember you are a clone so guess what happens… Yup you get cloned again and start the game. Very cool idea and I like it a lot. The setting of the game is great and I like the ideas behind it. You also have 6 factions you can associate with. Each faction has its own unique training possibilities and technology. As you progress in the game you can even work on switching to other factions to learn their abilities. The leveling system is pretty cool as well. You don't have classes instead you earn skill points which can be used for either increasing your ability scores or you skills. So you make the class you want to play. If you want to use pistols put points into pistols. If you want to be a melee powerhouse, put points into strength and melee skill. Very simple and works well for a game like this.
Ok on to graphics and game play… Well the game looks alright its not great but its not bad either. Animations look okay but need work they look kind of stiff. I know in game development stuff like this has tradeoffs. If you make more detail animations or models you need to give up other visual stuff. In this case Icarus Studios balance everything else out and its just plain. As I said before it just needs more time in the developer's hands. Game play is okay as well. I also love that I can run up steep inclines without even slowing down, but it seems like there are some invisible walls the prevent you climbing up some hills and not others. Frankly I hate invisible walls but I also hate game they want to realistic but yet make it so you can basically scale mountains without any effort.
The controls are clumsy and feel like an afterthought. If you want to go into combat you need to hit the tab key. While in combat mode the movement and the way the mouse is used changes. Its right click and left clicks and sometimes you forget what mode you are in and waste time and ammo if you miss click. Its also hard to figure out what weapon is equip where so you can switch to that weapon when you need it. Also if you are wielding 2 pistols at a time and one runs out of ammo you automatically reload. Never mind that the second gun has a full clip! This has killed me a few times cause due to lag the display show 1 bullet left when you really just fired it so you go to switch to the other gun and boom stuck in the reload animation and you can't do anything. So here you are reloading a gun and you get the shit kicked out of you. Though I did find a fun bug, if you were to start something that’s has another animation you can reload your weapons much faster. Basically I would start the reload and then switch to another weapon and switch back. I have a feeling this will be fixed shortly though.
The game is trying to follow in Tabula Rasa's footsteps and to be more like a FPS. And a FPS is what its very hard trying to be probably too much so. You can equip up to like 6 weapons and change through them as you play much like a FPS. Heck you can even equip 2 pistols at a time. You have to aim and shoot just like a FPS but then it goes into the random numbers game to see if you actually hit. It works well and if the control scheme were changed it might work even better.
Lets see I've played the game for a few hours now and while it does have appeal I don't think its something I will continue to pay for. But I will be paying attention to what happens with this game and if they get the bugs and lag taken care of I will check it out again. That happens to also be what I will tell people who think its interesting to wait and check it out in a few months. The great thing is Icarus Studios are working hard and updating the game regularly so its just a matter of time before they get all the bugs worked out. Skip this MMO for now but check it out a few months from now.
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