Shane

Thomas

Your first experience in the game is similar to most RPG and MMO’s, character creation with options of your frame, and looks. Fallen earth does a good job giving you an available selection of hair styles, tattoo’s and even piercings so even if you were headed to the latest punk rock concert, you wouldn’t feel out of place. After character creation you’re led on a brief tutorial type mission to escape the corporation that cloned you, this does a good job of introducing you to some of the factions in game, while also getting you situated with controls and actions such as scavenging , sneaking past enemies, or scoping into your targets for headshots.

Unfortunately, the site was down for reading the game manual when I started playing, but the menu’s and gameplay were pretty intuitive and if you’ve played any RPG’s whatsoever getting the hang of the interface is a piece of cake. However I will say it’s always good to read up on a few things such as faction alignments, otherwise you could end up pissing off the wrong groups and end up fighting an uphill battle, not to mention the manual has a good appendix of skills and special enhancements, that might give you better idea of how you want to map out your characters’ skills as you progress.

Character creation is where an RPG game begins and Fallen Earth has all the trappings of a typical MMO, choosing facial features, tattoos, hair type, etc. Sadly, there is very little to distinguish yourself as someone unique in character creation. The game falls into lock-step with many of the more popular post-apocalyptic movies, games, and cartoons in this one feature but more than makes up for this lack of customization in the other areas of the game. The setting is a damaged earth, struggling to survive after being ravaged by the mysterious Shiva virus. The world created in Fallen Earth feels very much like a patient sent home from the hospital a little bit before survival was assured, not dead yet but barely holding on to each breath.

Thomas

Coming from playing a lot FPS games of late, I found the initial excitement of the third person shooting in game was able to keep my attention on the game to gain quite a few levels. The games plotline was interesting enough and you got some awesome weapons such as a rocket launcher and a scoped rifle right from the start, which I enjoyed using to headshot and give critical damage to many foes.

Unfortunately, after the tutorial level you lost everything, and were only given a knife as a weapon. I found this extremely disappointing considering I chose an area with specialties for pistol and rifle being the main focus, as opposed to being a supporting healer or being a crafter of weapons. From then on out I found myself completing missions to advance along, things such as killing a number of specific gang members, or using a particular gained skill such as salvaging copper. I’ll admit there is so many different missions to accomplish, I was a little overwhelmed at times trying to figure out which ones to complete at first.

One of my favorite missions I encountered included knocking some squatters in the head with a pipe to get them to “pay up” to the landlord. Some of the negative aspects of the game included some time consuming and not so fun missions that required resource gathering, or the continued killing of one type of animal, which made the game monotonous at times.. I found myself wondering why I was running around trying to scavenge for parts, or learn a recipe for grilled chicken, when I myself have a hard time remembering ingredients for my favorite chicken enchiladas. On top of the repetitious missions it seemed like enemies would appear out of nowhere, and that has always bothered me in gameplay.

For instance you would clear of a hill of Prairie chickens or Komodo dragons, and see no enemies on your map, do a 360 turn and then the game would generate a couple more on the other side of the hill. Another one of my least favorite things about the game, was when you kill something, you can’t just get items for it, you’ve got to go through a two-step process of collecting their items, and then harvesting them (if you’ve gained that skill), which was boring for me in several ways considering harvesting can take 3-5 seconds, when all I wanted to really do was find something else to kill with my newly built air gun that I scavenged the wasteland to create. All in all the gameplay was fun despite the repeated going through the motions of collecting of resources, but boy does the time fly by as you’re playing, and as low level as I was, I never really got the feeling as if I accomplished anything with my time.

Fallen Earth abandons the traditional class system of most MMO’s, avoiding fixed skill sets and abilities in favour of a more realistic system based on improving individual skills and group associations. As your experience grows you gain AP, or attribute points, that you can apply to any of your skills as soon as you get them or save them up to allow you time to decide. Players start on an even playing ground, same skills and ability scores, allowing you to define yourself more by developing than sudden leaps in power.

Ability scores affect more than one skill, and also the maximum you can achieve in those skills, so they cost more AP. Then there are the skill lists themselves which range from natural abilities like mutations and physical talents all the way to learned skills like weapon handling and crafting. This is where Fallen Earth steps away from most games, allowing you to craft food, clothes, armour, weapons, and even vehicles. Everything I made was customizable to one extent or another, with crafting your own vehicle being particularly fascinating.

This can be a daunting task to a newer to gamer but is handled effectively by recipe books and a very easy to use interface that helps you keep track of what each item need. Recipes, and really most of what you need to learn to survive, is taught to you by various NPC’s belonging to a large number of factions and their sub groups. With over 20 slots for armor and six for weapons the customization for function and fashion far exceeds most games. Making everything craft-able and customizable and the world opens up, not bound to three or four sets of the “best” gear but instead relying on ingenuity and creativity. Considering how flexible your skill set is, this allows players to tailor gear to a more personal mixture of style and effectiveness.