Fallen Earth is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) that takes place near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It mixes traditional MMORPG type gameplay with some FPS (first person shooter) style combat. It features both melee and firearm combat, and a seemingly robust item crafting system.
From Wikipedia:
The Fallen Earth story begins in the 21st Century, when the first in a series of natural disasters hits the United States. As Americans struggle to recover, an investment tycoon named Brenhauer buys a controlling stake in a mega-corporation named GlobalTech. By 2051, he moves his headquarters to the Grand Canyon Province, where GlobalTech eventually creates a self-sufficient economic and military mini-state. Meanwhile, in India and Pakistan, the Shiva virus, named for the dance-like convulsions that it caused in its victims, appears among the human populace. As the infection starts to spread, countries accuse each other of engineering the virus. Political paranoia turn to open aggression and nuclear conflict. The nuclear conflict combined with the virus devastates the planet. Less than one percent of Earth’s population survived the Fall, and the Hoover Dam Garrison and Grand Canyon Province are the only known outposts of human civilization.
Outside the protective confines of the Hoover Dam Garrison, the player will encounter ruins of the old world, genetically-altered creatures, strange technology, and six warring factions. Some factions seek to rebuild the old world, others wish to build a new one in their own image, and some simply desire chaos and anarchy.
Yesterday morning, sitting at the computer with my cup of coffee and boredom creeping up on me, I decided I wanted to try a new game. I’ve been on a kick with post-apocalyptic stuff lately so I thought of Fallen Earth. A year ago or so I had tried FE out during their Alpha testing program. The game was in its early stages of development at the time. I tested it for a bit but ultimately put it down to go back to my normal MMORPG vice (Lord of the Rings Online). Back to yesterday morning – coffee in hand I browse over to the Fallen Earth website to find out they had a 10 day free trial, so I downloaded it, created my account and logged in. Here are my first impressions on the game after having been logged in for several hours:
Story: The story line is your standard post-apocalypse story. Interesting enough to interest me in it. So far I’ve only seen the tutorial missions and done a few oddjobs to earn [poker]chips (currency) and get gear.
General Gameplay: Nothing fancy here either. It seems to be your standard mission based game, earning XP/money/gear as you go. If there is a mob grind later on, I am not aware of it. I’ve not played with melee enough to say anything about it, but the gunplay in it is whats to be expected in an MMORPG style game. Some targets can be one-shotted with the correct training/weapon, but starting out it will take several hits to get a kill.
Crafting: I’ve not done a lot with this yet either but the crafting system in this game looks very promising. You have your scavenging skills used to get materials to make things like ammo, weapons, armor, clothing, food and more.
Worth the Subscription Fee? I’ve not decided yet. There have been some MMOs in the past that I knew within minutes I would pay a monthly fee for it (LOTRO, DAoC) and there have been others I did not decide on until the end of the trial. This one is hard to say. Since I have a life account with LOTRO (no monthly fees!), I have room in the budget for an MMO sub – this might be the one to hold me over until the new Star Wars MMO hits. On the other hand, if as I progress through the 10 day trial this gets no more fun than it already is, I might pass.
Final Thought: It is certainly worth checking out if you like computer games and if you like the genre.
A few days back I posted about a game called Fallen Earth, I’ve gotten some more time on it and it is turning out to be pretty fun. My character specializes in pistols and is working on learning weapon and ammo making. I spend a lot of time scavenging materials and killing bad guys, what else could be more fun in the post-apocalyptic Grand Canyon region?
Recent Comments