Tabula Rasa™ is a massively multiplayer online action game that takes you into the heat of battle on the frontlines of an epic war between a xenophobic alien race, bent on galactic conquest and the coalition of rebel soldiers who’ve traveled across the galaxy to stop them.
Tabula Rasa, the latest Sci-Fi MMORPG from NC Soft, is developed by Destination Games, a team of old school developers led by Richard Garriot, a legend in the games history. He is the father of ultima series, and the creator of the first western mmorpg, ultima online, that is still available today.
With so many fantasy mmorpgs on the market, NC Soft and DG decided to approach a sci-fi world, a good choice since I am sure many of you guys got a little sick of elf and dwarfs:P. So with no further ado, let’s get into the game.
I won’t start by telling you how good or bad it is. I am just gonna tell you what differs in comparison with your regular mmorpg style (like Daoc, Wow, Ao, etc).
After completing the training session, I got to say, it was a different feeling at the end in comparison with the cookie cutter mmorpgs out there due to the fast paced combat. Enemies landing from drop ships on the battlefield, friendly NPCs firing at them, moving around, it was like a real war zone from the very beginning, which left me with a good first impression.
You control your character like in a shooter, with W,A,S,D and aim with the mouse. Aiming works better with auto aim; basically you aim at the enemy for a target lock, press TAB, and you can move or run, and as long you shoot in the mark, you hit and do damage. Having the aim on the enemy, or the target locked on him, you get detail information about the enemy, and you find out if it is in the range of your equipped weapon. You can also press middle mouse button and get a close-up camera on you (good for aiming), a camera similar to the one in Gears of Wars. Remember, this is not a shooter afterall; the damage you do comes from a number of factors: character skills, attributes, weapons attributes, range and other features.
You advance with your character by developing 3 attributes: body, mind and spirit, each giving you bonuses on different classes and skills. Depending on the attributes you got skills and abilities. These give you some possibilities to use different types of weapons armor and the ability to run faster or discharge a nice lighting bolt at the enemies for starters. Besides these you also have some special powers called logos, although we didn’t mange to test them properly.
The interface is pretty simple, with a quick bar for weapons and one for logos/abilities. Also, you can access a full list of interface features by pressing the ctrl key.
Another nifty feature that comes with this game are clones. Every time you change your class, if you have the clone, you can clone your character. This character will be available on your selection screen and will act like another character, this way, if you want to try another class, you won’t start again; or if you party needs another class, you can make a swift change with the clone you have. The last name will remain on all clones, so friends will recognize you.
In every region there are a few hubs, outposts where you can buy things, craft, get missions, quests, and even defend it from time to time from bane. One of the cool things in this game is that something always happends. Just stand for a little while outside an outpost and you will see drop ships landing with enemies on an assault, NPCs that will start defending the outpost, players that will participate, it’s a pretty nice view. Another cool thing is that, on territories where banes perform heavy assaults on a outpost, you will find yourself that logged on friendly outpost, and when you log in, the bane have occupied it, which is a very interesting feature on the dynamic battlefield.
Quests and missions usually give you a chance to choose from different rewards, and they are decent, so you level pretty well with quests, and missions or group instances. As for the weapons, we got everything from pistols, shotguns, rifles, rocket launchers and each weapon is good for something, for an enemy, so you will find yourself carrying 4-6 weapons or more, and use them according to their damage and the enemy you have to face.
What we know on the high end content is that it will have Personal Armor Units available at level 40 for each PAU. It will have bonuses such as movement, more firepower, and different abilities per type. Each type is unique to the military career the player has selected. When visualizing the PAU, visualize the AFS Mech, although each will be very different… and may not necessarily be a mech. On level 50 you get to command NPCs, where as commander, you have the chance to control your own subordinate squad of NPCs. Teach them, outfit them, and give them commands on the battlefield. The more successful you are with your squad, the bigger and better your squad will become, granting you Command Points, and we also gonna have Clan Wars, and Clan skills.
On the graphic and sound part, Tabula Rasa is presented very well. On maximum details the graphics are pretty nice, and the sounds are ok, music gets you in the right mood for killing the banes.
This is our first review for Tabula Rasa – closed beta, and I got to say the game is pretty nice. Action packed, with rpg elements, dynamic battlefields, clone system, and the end game content seems like will keep many of us busy.
See you on the battlefield!
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