Review: Fallen Earth

I have been quietly (i.e. not blogging) trying out Fallen Earth. As someone who absolutely loved Fallout 3, I have two of the five DLC for the 360 game, and would easily fire up the game again if any of the DLC became the weekly discount on Xbox live. The idea of a post apocalyptic MMO is a great basis of a game, and to be honest, I am kind of tired of Orcs and Elves.

As for the game itself, I did have a few reservations. I hadn’t heard much of the game, and hadn’t followed any of the development, so I was a bit out of the loop on the game. Tim gave it a thumbs up, and Syp over at Bio Break also gave it a positive review. Tim mentioned that he loved the crafting in the game, and he normally hates crafting. Syp has just been dripping praise left and right over the game. So I took a chance and bought the game.

The first thing I noticed is that the game is not for the faint of heart, nor is it the most user-friendly game. During the newbie intro section I was in combat for more than a minute before I found the keyboard command in the listing that let me know I had to use the TAB key to switch into and out of combat. Fortunately, in the newbie intro section, you are level 45 and the guys fighting you are level 1, so there is no real danger of getting hurt.

After getting through the intro section, you emerge from one of six starter towns. There are lots to do in the towns, and there are lots more than moving from quest to quest. This game is built on exploring. I am still in Sector 1 (currently there are three sectors) and so much of the game involves roaming around. Areas are sparsely populated outside of towns. Quests sadly do fall into the category of “kill 10 rats,” but there is an aura of humor about it. Chickens look like they were cross-bred with armadillos, rabbits cross-bred with dogs, and other bizarre mutations. The look of the population is straight out of Mad Max. Over all, the game is fun and a refreshing change from a lot of MMOs that I have played over the very long course of my gaming career.

Having said that, there are a few things that do pop in the game, but fortunately they are not serious. Crafting is a lot of fun, but has serious item management issues. In addition to inventory limits, you have weight limits. So maintaining a steady pace of raising all seven crafting skills is a bit daunting. Usually you wind up grinding out one skill at a time. There are a lot of items to craft, a lot. Each skill has various blocks, and each block has several items that you can craft. With some good scavenging and some serious time sinking, you could easily gain four or five levels from the start just with crafting alone. On the up side of all that crafting, starting is more than just “learning” from a trainer. Most of the crafting is unlocked by doing a quest and gaining a book that teaches you how to craft stuff. After a certain point, you can actually teach yourself the next level. All of the armor I am wearing right now are comprised from items that I have crafted. And speaking of armor, there are 19 separate sections on your body you can wear. Your left hand is separate from your right hand, and your right upper arm is separate from your left upper arm. Yes, it’s that involved.

So far, outside of having to trash all non-crafting related items to make space for my skill grinding requirements, it’s a good game, for the most part. There have been more than a few system locks that crashed my computer. Since all of the game is on one main server that is separated out into various sections, this has led to some to serious town lag and more pop-in than some people are willing to put up with. Icarus Studios is a small studio, with no games to their credit other than the Dexter iPhone game, and Fallen Earth is being patched all the time. So for right now I am being patient with the lag-crashes.

For now, I am definitely going to stick with this game. The quest text has a wacky sense of fun, it’s definitely not for those that like their hand being held throughout the game. But if trying something 90 degrees off center sounds appealing to you, definitely check it out. Who knows, maybe it will top WoW some day?