We continue our first look at Fury begun yesterday with a look at Fury's interface, gameplay, and audio.

Interface

Players might be a little irked that ability icons can't be moved around the hotbars during gameplay like in other MMOGs, that is, except while your journal is open as if to customize your ability loadout. However, in the heat of battle, I could easily see myself dragging a necessary skill icon into the oblivion of the center screen, so in the end I felt pretty happy that things are locked down by default. The default level of zoom on the minimap is a little tight and the floating icons a little big, but the feature to ping, permanently mark, and draw a line on your minimap for your team to see is pretty handy.

Gameplay

Fury consists exclusively (and unapologetically) of Player vs. Player (PvP) combat. Outside of a few training bots in the Bloodbath training battleground, you won't find any computer controlled opponents in the game. That's good and bad news – good because you'll face off with some pretty tough competition and become a better, more involved player for it, and bad because you'll face some tough matches as you begin your career. That is, despite the matchmaking system that will take some time after launch to fully take shape due to the initial influx of skilled players from the Fury Challenge event and open beta.

As such, it's tempting to shoebox Fury as a more or less mindless hack 'n' slash affair. In truth, it's more like a professional sports event. It's fast-paced and entertaining during the action, sure, but the spectacle belies the careful preparation and attention to minute detail on either side that took place before the game. You'll want to get down and dirty with the stats so you will be more likely to do just that extra bit of damage / healing / warding that gets you through a tight spot. Or at least die knowing that you'd done all the homework and been as prepared as you possibly could be.

And Fury is indeed as much a game of stats and head knowledge as it is about fast reflexes. Each of the game's four schools (Life, Death, Growth, and Decay) have a corresponding element (water, fire, earth, and air, respectively). Low grade abilities create charges used to power your more powerful abilities within the same element, but charges from opposing elements (fire and water, earth and air) cancel themselves out. Thus, if you're wanting to mix abilities from multiple schools, it's smart not to mix Life and Death, or Growth and Decay. It's pretty elemental when you think about it (sorry).

On the stats side, Fury has points systems on top of points systems. In addition to your offense and defense with regard to the physical (melee) and spiritual (casting) aspects of the four schools, you have equip points that govern the weapons, armor, and jewelry you can wear at any one time. Equipment is rated from Tier 1 to Tier 10, with higher tiers being both more powerful and more expensive to equip. Players are given a high tier set to start and will probably adjust downwards to supplement armor with powerful necklaces, earrings, and rings they "roll" on at the end of battle. Another interesting note – armor type is irrelevant when it comes to damage mitigation; armor is armor, and plate doesn't necessarily protect better than leather armor. Instead, the breakdown is by school: padded (death), scale (life), plate (decay), and leather (growth).

Abilities are equipped in similar points system fashion – go low tier for more individual abilities and therefore more flexibility, go high tier to load up just a few powerful abilities, or mix and match 'til your heart's content. Most abilities have 10 tiers as well (more power equals higher equip cost), so you can really tailor your combat arsenal to what you want to do while spending just about each of those precious equip points.

The artificer system, Fury's answer to crafting, is one of my favorite features of the game. For a pittance of coin, you pay an NPC to craft you a piece of armor to match the school (element), slot, and tier you specify. Stats and rarity are up to chance and prices escalate with higher tiers, but I was able to artifice myself a suit of decent tier 8 archetype armor (complete with set bonuses) with the proceeds from just a single night of elimination matches. If you need a boost during combat, potions and scrolls are also available for purchase from alchemist and scroll vendors. Container vendors sell boxes and bags to help you keep your gear organized, and with 8 incarnations sharing the same inventory, you'll need the help.

Some have called Fury a button masher and, to be sure, you can play that way. That is, if you don't really care to live up to the potential of your character or you take time to plan out your hotbar so that a sort-of controlled button mashing (if that makes sense) ensures you're filling up and dispensing your elemental charges efficiently  and the elements you're wielding don't cancel out each other (fire debuffs deteriorate active water debuffs, air-based weapons interfere with active earth DoTs, etc.).

To be sure, the action in Fury is intense, and you'd be forgiven for button mashing your way through your first few losses. But when you settle down and really delve into your abilities and equipment, you'll find that you can experiment with different strategies with differing degrees of success. For example, if the bulk of your abilities require you to be within melee range of your opponent, abilities such as "Raid" and "Blink" that allow you to close quickly to your target are very useful when assaulting casters, who are only too happy to deal you damage in those tense moments it takes to approach them.  Before the battle, you'll want to make sure everything about your character, from abilities to armor and weapons, is purpose built to the role you want to fulfill in combat. Auran made this easy with "incarnations" – or equipment and ability loadouts – for each of the game's archetypes.

Sound & Music

Sound effects are generally well done; never overbearing and decently interwoven into the whole of the interface. Clearly, it was a priority that sound should inform as well as entertain, and with a little practice you'll learn the distinctive sounds that indicate events you should address, like the rattle of a decay school Damage Over Time spell. I was personally indifferent to the music of the game; it was adequate, but neither memorable nor brash.

Summary

Unlike a number of games I've played lately, Fury is definitely a candidate for a very favorable review. We'll see how things shake out past the first scheduled maintenance date on October 30th. For the time being, I'll recommend it to anyone who enjoys diving into the minutae of stat building and balancing, planning out small group tactics on the fly, and just kicking a lot of ass in a hurry. Fury offers the full spectrum of accessibility, from putting mid-to-low-spec players on the level with the hardware elite to giving casual players an alternative to watching their hardcore gaming friends disappear over yet another gaming horizon. MMOG gamers, give pure PvP a chance. I think you'll be glad you did.

Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for Fury news and information!