Ahris on 20/5/2012 at 14:42

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I've been playing the beta of this game this weekend and it's not bad at all.

The game is an MMO with a setting that reminds you of for example The X-files, Supernatural or Hellboy. Occultism and myths in a modern world.
It has the storytelling and adventure play of Dreamfall: The longest journey and the action rpg bit of VTM: Bloodlines, that's how it feels to me anyway.
What really sticks out to me are the mission briefings and cutscenes, they are really well done with very high quality voice acting (Down to the accents), very detailed animation and facial expressions that really adds personality to the quest NPC's you encounter. It impressed the hell out of me. :)

Quests are often linked in one way or another and all of them tells a story about the area and its inhabitants, with 'linked' i mean that once you finish one quest, you can mostly find another in the area you've ended up in that takes you to another place, where you'll find yet another one. They sort of give you a tour of the area without you having to run around aimlessly to find something to do.
There isn't really any grinding, you progress mostly by doing the missions and there are a LOT of missions with a lot of variety. It's not always straighforward, many of them require you to think or look around for clues. The puzzles are one thing that makes this game quite unique for an MMO, i suppose it's a Massively Multiplayer Online Action Adventure Game, MMOAAG. ;)

The skills are all combat oriented and all 'stats' comes from the gear you wear.
There are Melee, Ranged and Magic combat forms. Melee is divided into Blades, Hammer and Fists. Ranged is divided into Pistols, Shotgun and Assault rifle. Magic is divided into Elemental, Chaos and Blood magic. Each of theese are further divided into an offensive and a defensive skill tree.
You can get skills from any or all of the combat forms, the only restrictions you have is that you can't use them without having its weapon equipped (You can equip two different weapons at a time) and you can only use 7 active and 7 passive skills at any given time.
The idea is that you get a deck of skills that you can mix and match from to tailor your combat style. Most, if not all skills has something that can benefit other skills or adds buff/debilitation as a secondary bonus under the right circumstances.
So it's about mixing and matching a set of skills that complement eachother in a way that suits your way of playing.

Well i enjoyed this beta weekend a lot, the actual combat is pretty mainstream but the rest of the game is something different and i enjoyed the storyline and setting just like i enjoy a good adventure game, there is a lot of effort put into character and story depth and it makes The Secret World just as special as i always hoped it would be. :)

Ahris on 26/5/2012 at 11:08

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Törnquist has definately left his mark on this game and that's its biggest strength. :)