Fallen Earth Beta

The fun never stops.  It seems that story telling moves out of the fantasy space, and we start to see a lot of new settings into which we can project our virtual selves.  I downloaded Fallen Earth Beta the other night, and I am giving it a brief go this evening.

The story line seems very interesting – although a virtual cliché.  Post-apocalypse, mutants, clones, dark versus the light.  However, the combat system is not just tab it and forget it. You have to aim!  Looks promising, and the story has some voice over work as well.

  

Good character creation – very much in line with what you would expect.  Lots of piercings and tattoos.

The story starts you with the revelation that you are a clone.  They intend to harvest your organs, but a good doctor wants to help you escape – from where?  The Hoover Dam is the location into which you make your entry into the game and narrative space.  Your escape quest chain starts.  The source of the destruction seems to be the Shiva Virus – a mutating virus that accelerates evolution.  This screen signifies the end of my first quest – meeting my savior – Elena Winters.  I brought her a power supply for the computer, and now we wait for a PC boot up to help us steal a car!

Gameplay is awkward, and that can detract from the story.  Stay tuned, as I am going to play a few hours this week to see what it has.  So far, even the basic quests seem difficult to navigate.  They are going to make me work for this story.

The guys at massively.com made some observations to the effect that it has a pretty rich crafting and other old school SWG like systems, and that is very attractive.

The story has potential to engage me, so I will continue to work through the basic quests to see if it is worth a subscription.

~ by Xavier Morgan on August 25, 2009.