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My Review of Tabula Rasa
Gr4dient
Member Posts: 59
Backstory
Nasty aliens have invaded the earth. Humanity has regrouped on another planet.
Play
After the tutorial (well worth doing) you are dumped in a battlefield called Wilderness located on the planet Foreas. You spend your time battling the wildlife on this planet, starting with pig like animals, moving on to cave dwelling blobs, things that jump from trees and big spider like things.
If you run out of money you can kill the nasty aliens that invaded the earth for an easy bounty. Fighting for control points is the best way to do this.
The sentient wildlife consists of the Foreans and a group of hippies. These are so incompetent that you spend your time baby-sitting and running errands for them.
There are also four instances in the Wilderness. You can trot through these quite easily as it is the nasty aliens that mainly inhabit them; there is not much fauna about. There is one instance where the nasty aliens are tough but with a bit of care you should solo this ok.
After the Wilderness you move onto a battlefield called Divide. This is a lot harder, mainly cause there are some flying things that spit lightening at you. Again you spend your time killing the fauna, laughing at the nasty aliens and baby-sitting the locals.
There is another battlefield on Foreas, sadly the spiders are not there. However the lightening spitting flying things have been given a good boost which more than makes up for this.
After finishing this battlefield you head for another planet. This is a great place, with lots of lava about. Again you spend your time battling the fauna. The cool thing here is that they are often on fire; I suppose to tie in with the hot, hot, hot theme of the planet.
The lightening spitting flying things are bigger and have a nasty punch now but luckily they move slower. There are some annoying flying robots that can clone you, so you get to kill yourself, which is cool.
You do a few more battlefields on this second planet before going back to the first planet to kill more fauna and then back to the second planet, where the fauna is really tough now, but with perseverance you can get to level 50.
General
There is not much community in Tabula Rasa. There are no official forums so the community is spread around the various fansites. However the feedback from the developers is good with communication from them most weeks.
Summary
Tabula Rasa is a great game, well worth playing.
Comments
Had I never played and read this review, I wouldn't set foot in this game. I'm surprised by your last line that it's a great game, your review makes it sound pretty poor, heh.
I never got to 50, but your annalysis is pretty spot on, in lay-man's term.s.
Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
You gave the backstory only one line? C'mon, it deserves better than that. It's surprisingly more rich than "aliens take over Earth, humanity struggles."
When the Borg invaded Earth, they laid siege to every nation in the world, taking no prisoners. Humans became so fearful of them that they distributed small arms freely despite intervention from their governments, and we had no time to prepare biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. We led a fierce resistance against the Bane, and when they retreated back into space, we thought we had won, but the truth was that they were recalled so that they could release a deadly disease on the planet. Only then did we lose Earth.
I hate to sound rude, but that's not so much a review as a brief description of the geography. It's not informative at all.
Play - FPS? strengths/weaknesses, graphics, performance, crafting, things that set this mmo apart from its competitors? For someone who hasn't already played the game, these are the kinds of things they want to know.
Okay, I'll fix that for you:
"Aliens take over Earth, humanity struggles, and they shoot each other."
That should do it.
Okay, I'll fix that for you:
"Aliens take over Earth, humanity struggles, and they shoot each other."
That should do it.
I'd describe it as "Aliens attack and win, humans fight back on another planet".TR's storeyline is a weaker aspect of the game IMO, but really, all they needed was a familiar reason for humans to be fighting aliens.
You mean like....
:P
You mean like....
:P
My understanding, if I have the TR lore correctly is an NPC told my avatar "They were talking s#!t about you!" So I shoot 'em in da face!
Well let me gevie you some other backstories of a few movies then:
Star Wars: People have power, some use it for good, some for bad. So they fight.
LOTR: Bad ring being made, evil wizzard wants it back. So they fight.
Transformers: Other planet: robots, good and bad, they fight.
Spiderman: man has superpowers and goes on fighting the bad guy.
All of these movies where a great hit. The backstory of this game resembles Star wars quite a bit to be honest. Somtimes when i play this game its like playing jedi academy, but only better.
Anyway, the review isn't really good. Its a description of the levels.
But i have to agree on the community part and the forum part. Why the hell don't they have forums? Thank god they're going to make a LFG tool. It will make things much easier.
I agree that the game needs official forums. I think all MMOs do, but apparently a lot of people don't agree. Check out the Warhammer Online forums to find heated debates on the subject. I usually wouldn't want to play an MMO with no official forums, but this game doesn't leave me baffled and searching for information as often as most other MMOs. It would be great to have an official forum so only current subs could post there. I hate the fact that every time we try to discuss the game, we have to endure asinine comments from people who apparently didn't even play the game more than a few minutes, if at all. I'm totally baffled why someone would play a game for a week and then spend 6 months trashing it on the internet.
I haven't even noticed the absence of LFG tools. There is an LFG chat tab, but I never use it. I don't spend much time in pick-up groups though... especially in this game since you don't need a full squad to do most quests. I usually play MMOs with my brother and my son, sometimes a few other firends... and I always hate having to beg strangers for help. Rather than fault them for the absence of tools to facilitate begging for help on a specific quest, I appreciate the fact that I don't even need those tools in this game. I'm not staying they shouldn't add LFG tools... just that I haven't needed them much.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
I've found the best non-official forum to be located at planettr.com, the developers are quite active on the site. I've had 2 devs respond to my pms, I've never had a dev respond to me personally like that before.
Give the game a chance, its improving. If you don't like it fine - tell me what amazing mmog you're playing, that's perfect, and I'll come check it out.
This is the main problem
Instead of spending time with his game this is what hes doing so what would you expect. What would you do if you know that your boss is out for his trip to the space and you can do whatever you want.
This game is doomed...
aliens take over Earth, humanity struggles... and gets really bored.
There all fixed. Seriously, after level 30 this game is a grindfest. You fight the same aliens over and over only they change color later and get tougher. The content is weak, though the puzzles are pretty decent. I just wish there was more agro/tactical variety to break things up.
It's a shame because the gameplay is excellent and graphics are absolutely stunning... I loved everything else about it, especially the guns and armor. The story content and variety is just meh. As well there's a lot of content balancing that needs to happen.
One hell of a game environment and class system though. I definitely feel like I got my money's worth, but it's a diversion, not a long term game, at least for me. Had they come up with a good PvP system (Bane vs. Humans? Duh?) with open PvP instances along side PvE only ones (so everyone is happy), I'd still be playing for sure.
The whole "my clan is bigger than yours" aspect is what made me not want to participate.
If you want a breath of fresh air while you find your next long term game this is an excellent choice. Maybe you'll see something I didn't.
-Viz
ok, how about:
Nasty aliens have invaded the earth. Humanity has regrouped on another planet and find employment as gamekeepers.
I know it is overstating the case somewhat, but I seem to spend most of my time managing the wildlife as opposed to giving the Bane a good thrashing.
ok, how about:
Nasty aliens have invaded the earth. Humanity has regrouped on another planet and find employment as gamekeepers.
I know it is overstating the case somewhat, but I seem to spend most of my time managing the wildlife as opposed to giving the Bane a good thrashing.
I spend most of my time fighting Bane. Also, the nasty animals aren't generally local fauna, they are part of the Bane invasion force... or rather a weapon used by the Bane, gathered from worlds they have already attacked.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
THAT is your backstory??? You have GOT to be joking me...
ok, how about:
Nasty aliens have invaded the earth. Humanity has regrouped on another planet and find employment as gamekeepers.
I know it is overstating the case somewhat, but I seem to spend most of my time managing the wildlife as opposed to giving the Bane a good thrashing.
I spend most of my time fighting Bane. Also, the nasty animals aren't generally local fauna, they are part of the Bane invasion force... or rather a weapon used by the Bane, gathered from worlds they have already attacked.
I seriously wanted to take this game seriously, seriously I did. To me, the game tried too hard to be serious, or simply didn't take itself seriously enough, in all seriousness.
So seriously, why do you take this game seriously?
I'm seriously curious. Seriously.
If you read this, maybe the word "seriously" will lose meaning before you can respond.
I have a bridge to sell, interested?
LIES!
I bought one from you last goat-migration season and all I got was a fallen log over a dry creek.
Don't trust this guy!
There is a big glaring flaw in that argument. Honestly, if I'm trying a game and it both:
Fails to steal my gaming soul
and
Causes me to regret even installing it
...inside the first 6 hours of gameplay, why on earth would it deserve to be "waited on" to deliver an actual enjoyable experience later? Fact is, a game should be killer from the word go...and anything less is just piss poor design. Any designer or developer worth his salt would tell you that without skipping a beat. Frankly. a game which fails in that regard deserves MORE than 6 months of bashing. If you can't make the first 6 hours of gameplay worthwhile, when its the most heavily tested part OF the game, you are right on the border of needing to be hauled out back and shot. WoW rocked my socks off in the first 6 hours by doing little more than allowing me to beat peons around with a blackjack to gain my 5th level. Even the free-to-play games generally offer some nice levels 1-15 gameplay.
If the big boys drop the ball on it...there ain't no saving the game.
There is a big glaring flaw in that argument. Honestly, if I'm trying a game and it both:
Fails to steal my gaming soul
and
Causes me to regret even installing it
...inside the first 6 hours of gameplay, why on earth would it deserve to be "waited on" to deliver an actual enjoyable experience later? Fact is, a game should be killer from the word go...and anything less is just piss poor design. Any designer or developer worth his salt would tell you that without skipping a beat. Frankly. a game which fails in that regard deserves MORE than 6 months of bashing. If you can't make the first 6 hours of gameplay worthwhile, when its the most heavily tested part OF the game, you are right on the border of needing to be hauled out back and shot. WoW rocked my socks off in the first 6 hours by doing little more than allowing me to beat peons around with a blackjack to gain my 5th level. Even the free-to-play games generally offer some nice levels 1-15 gameplay.
If the big boys drop the ball on it...there ain't no saving the game.
Well said, that. I'm still 3 months shy of completing my bashing-spree of Tabula Rasa.
Oh and spot-on about that bit on game design. It's a wonder how these developers don't get the hint.
There is a big glaring flaw in that argument. Honestly, if I'm trying a game and it both:
Fails to steal my gaming soul
and
Causes me to regret even installing it
...inside the first 6 hours of gameplay, why on earth would it deserve to be "waited on" to deliver an actual enjoyable experience later? Fact is, a game should be killer from the word go...and anything less is just piss poor design. Any designer or developer worth his salt would tell you that without skipping a beat. Frankly. a game which fails in that regard deserves MORE than 6 months of bashing. If you can't make the first 6 hours of gameplay worthwhile, when its the most heavily tested part OF the game, you are right on the border of needing to be hauled out back and shot. WoW rocked my socks off in the first 6 hours by doing little more than allowing me to beat peons around with a blackjack to gain my 5th level. Even the free-to-play games generally offer some nice levels 1-15 gameplay.
If the big boys drop the ball on it...there ain't no saving the game.
So this game isn't for you... that doesn't make it bad. You love WoW... that tells me all i need to know about your high standards. Everyone likes different games... and we all hate different games. I played EvE and hated it, but I didn't think I should piss and moan about it on their forums for the next six months like some ass-hurt little kid. I have played at least a hundred games that didn't "steal my soul"... and i don't troll any of their forums. It's sad and pathetic.. and there is really something wrong with you you if you derive pleasure from trying to piss on someone else's good time... like our good friend Plasuma. He has more posts in this forum than the people who actually play the game... and none of them offer anything of value to the conversation.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----