'Fallen Earth' Review (5/10)

Well, I was sick of pixies, faries, orcs and elves. I gave Fallen Earth a shot. Seemed like a riot

• There was first-person/third-person gameplay (Hellgate +1)
• There was melee and ranged combat -- with proper guns (Hellgate +1)
• Open world concept (Oblivion +1)
• The Earth was devastated by a deadly virus and there's so few of us left (Fallout +1)
• The graphics are great (Hellgate +1)
• There's support for PhysX technology (Coolness +1)

And then I played it.

Right off the bat there were problems - grievious problems

• The registration application crashed -- after taking my game serial number but before taking my credit card info -- stupid on their part. Shitty for me beause I had to wait a few days for them to sort it out as my serial number was marked as 'used'. Whey they couldn't just do a activation like Sacred2 (or hell, like all the other Steam games), I dont understand. And even at that, what is the point of needing a serial number activation on a per-machine basis when it's a damn MMO. But this aside, the tech support people got this sorted out decently fast enough so no complaints for them. It should be noted that buying the game nets you 30 days free play -- except you have to signup for a subscription before you get your first 30 days. Stupid. (the payments start on the 31st day and then, monthly or whatnot)
• As for the game itself... it uses a Freelancer style mousing interface (i.e., toggling between having the cursor on the screen to click on screen elements versus having the mouse handle mouselook). The difference being that Freelancer's implementation of this mousing UI was phenomenal and utterly impeccable. Fallen Earth's ... not so much. Outside from combat sequences (where mouseview mode is a given), there was no clear indication of which mode to use for what sometimes (i.e., activate this switch, open that door). Maybe it was lag (resulting in the switch not firing or the door not opening) but I ended up having to press the use-key, then toggle the mousemode then press the use-key again just to be sure. And on top of that, there were times when buttons wouldnt work resulting in my character standing at a doorway trying to open a door and not having anything happen)
• Ok, so I kill my character and start over again -- skipping the broken tutorial this time. Now I get to experience the failure of localized keybinding -- all my custom keybinds which were on my deleted character -- didnt transfer to the new character. Wow. Stupidity. Way to have keybinding local to a character and not a game. I suppose I could see an argument for per-character keybinding but that would only really be for internet cafe type of establishments -- not the average MMOer who may be making multiple characters -- and thus, have to bind keys multiple times.
• Ignoring the need to have to rebind for a second, the first thing I really notice is the Guild Wars style camera. This is not a compliment. Not in the least. The gaming community has this fancy thing called a mouse -- use it to look around -- dont use the damn keyboard. That is so 1980. Thankfully there is a hack-solution: I can tape the right mouse button down (RMB is for mouseview -- when you're not dual wielding) and my mouse is perma-mouseviewed ... except when I'm dual wielding, at which point I'm back to retarded camera-mode plus I'm running around flailing a rusty shiv like a retard. I meekly post a question on the newbie chat and some helpful fella tells me about pressing Tab to toggle between mouseview and mouse-on-screen. What a load of fail ... and I've not even gotten to the gameplay!
• As for gameplay, it's like someone took Guild Wars (read: brutally painful grinding) and attempted to add a first/third person view to it (with the above camera failings). End result? Dry. There's crafting (couldn't quite figure out how that works, but I'll give it the benefit of a doubt of not being an utter failure), their harvesting, there's cooking, shooting, meleeing etc. But don't get me wrong, it's definitely no World of Warcrap. Defintiely closer to Guild Wars.... especially with the broken camera model and all. But gameplay is sort of a subjective thing, so I can see the fun in the game once you get past the first grinding stage and can do stuff without dying left and right. Which brings me to two last utter failings...
• You cannot jump and mouse-look! What non-multitasking numbskull thought that would be a good idea? Virtually every single game in the damn world that's featured jumping and mouselook has allowed for both to happen at once. Ok fine. So you can't jump and mouselook, we can work around that right? Nope. The critters/NPCs can!
• No regarding the NPCs/critters, so far all of the once I've encountered are melee based ... and their melee range is 3-5m. That's friggen right. Three to five meters. Sure I can understand giving melee characters a bit of an exaggerated range (1.5-2.5m) as to keep the pace of action up (i.e. Oblivion managed to get this right, Hellgate managed to get this right). But 3-5 meters means that me, as a ranged character, had better kill whatever it is I'm killing at a bazillion miles away or it's gonna come charging at me -- all the while bouncing left and right because unlike us, they can jump and mouselook. Brilliant.
• Oh and one more. Going toe-to-toe with NPC/critters in melee = death. They hit twice as fast and do twice the damage. Like I have never seen a game with a melee weapon where the melee weapon swung that slowly (and generally, melee weapons artificially swing fast as to make it somewhat fun for the player). I was fighting a single dude with a dinky knife (think 5" blade) with my rusty shiv (think 7" blade). Ok so my blade is longer = heavier = swings slower right? Sure. It takes me a full 1.5 seconds in between swings. You'd think I was beating him to death with a shotput ball. Dont even ask about two handed weapons. Dual wielding a knife and pipe = 3 seconds at a time per attack. Lets not forget that the badguy can outkite your ass any day of the week. Oh ... and you dont have a 3-5m melee range, you get to go in point blank.

Needless to say, that's one canceled subscription.