The Secret World is a strange beast. It is an MMO set in the modern world with locations such as New York, London, Tokyo, ... offering a more in-depth gameplay with an emphasis on self-exploration and but using the old and familiar combat mechanics from previous mmo's
Last weekend was the last beta trial before its imminent release and obviously I had to try it out in more depth.
I came out of the beta with a few mixed feelings but was overall definitely pleased. It's a fascinating and intriguing little morsel but like so many MMO's it's just a few elements short of innovative perfection.
The Positive Points:
The game has a really enticing and vivid game setting. It is set in a modern day world with political factions making the decisions behind the scene, and with ghouls and horror all hidden and obscured from view.
Graphically it looks very decent for an MMO although that doesn't mean there's no weird glitches clipped textures. But even with that the setting is delightfully gloomy and makes perfect use of the many TV and horror tropes like fog, dim lighting etc ...
What makes The Secret World different than any other MMO is in many ways a very fluid and open quest system. Quests are more storylines that will open up to you and that can be left for later while you enter a new minor storyline. Your character progression is in a similar vein left wide-open, disfavouring the far too frequent level system in other MMO's.
It's refreshing and great fun. In my opinion the game's best feature without peer.
The gameplay itself encourages investigation and with its use of an in-game web browser it also enables research. When at one point a character asks you "Have you ever seen a panther tripping" you can open the browser and find that exact video on Youtube. It's amazing and offers so much more depth to the game. In that same vein, the dialogue is of an immensely high quality.
The Negative Points:
The character creator from the beta was quite disappointing. Only offering a few different clothing options, albeit with many colouring variations) It's still unsure whether that will be the case during launch, but I had a feeling that Funcom might use clothing for a micro transaction business model.
Not enough political/factional impact from my liking. I was kind of missing all the cloak and dagger and political backstabbing that really should be rife in a setting based almost completely on secret power factions. Once past your faction headquarters there's not enough political intrigue, both interior to your faction, as exterior with the rivaling powers
That's based however on a very small part of the game so this might be the case later on.
As fun and refreshing as the questing and gameplay is. The combat is a bit disappointing. Still using hotbars with spells and abilities you are once again bound to be clicking and pushing the same buttons. Although you cna choose between guns, melee weapons and spells, they all feel more like a bland flavour difference.
All-in-all the beta was a great bout of fun and the game is definitely worth trying out. I heartily recommend so.
For anyone who has preordered the game will open its secret doors tomorrow on Friday 28 June. If you're still undecided on the game you can view a trailer here:
This article is sponsored by EA
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