TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

by Cody “Micajah” Bye

“Hold the line!” I hear my groupmate scream as the Bane come pouring out of their space ships. “We can’t let them take the control point!” He ducks for cover as another member of the Bane incursion force begins firing at him, throwing chunks of shrapnel into the air. I shoulder my rifle and take aim, firing away without hesitation. These are our enemies, the creatures that destroyed our home – Earth – and it’s time for a bit of vengeance.

The gameplay in Tabula Rasa is a unique blend of FPS and RPG elements.

One alien after another falls to our onslaught, my bulkier friend is spinning his mini-gun in psychotic circles as he’s firing off rounds. I drop to my knees and plant a bullet square in one of their ugly domes. He falls to the ground, half his skull blown away.

Payback’s a bitch.

As the remaining aliens swiftly meet their doom, I lean back in my computer chair and smile with satisfaction. It’s about 4 p.m. on the day after the server’s went live for pre-order recipients, and I’m desperately trying to gather the motivation to pull myself away from the game to give an accurate portrayal of my first impressions of Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa. With the game only a few hours old, it would be inappropriate for the Ten Ton Hammer team to try and put together a point-by-point run down of the latest NCsoft release, so we’re putting aside the bullet points for another day. For now we’ll stick with the gut feelings and the emotions evoked by Garriott’s newest project.

Storyline and World

And you’ll have provocative responses aplenty on your first leap into Garriott’s new gaming environment. Devised and created by the legend himself, Tabula Rasa focuses on the battle between the Allied Free Sentients (AFS) and the notorious, blood-thirsty Bane. Your cause – the Allied Free Sentients – are trying to drive the Bane back from various worlds through force of arms. The Bane really don’t respond to any other forms of diplomacy, so a gun is the best way to get at them.

When you first drop down into the world of Tabula Rasa, you can almost feel the military presence in the air. High ranking officers bark orders at you as you progress through the first few missions. Continuing along in the game, you’ll find yourself being drawn further into alien landscapes and find secret store rooms of vast along knowledge (the Logos). Any missions you under take may eventually end up causing you to make a moral decision: Do you let a prisoner starve because he is a Bane? Or do you show him mercy and risk endangering the population of the outpost?

Adventuring throughout world, I could see Richard Garriott’s creative footprints all over this game. He’s conjured a terrific story of passion and determination. It was like a blast to the past, where the Ultima games once captivated my interest, now Tabula Rasa was holding me enthralled.

Gameplay and Interface

Tabula Rasa’s gameplay is an almost eclectic mix of first person shooter (FPS) combat andthe standard nuances that have become the “traditional” way of doing things in the MMORPG industry. Rather than featuring a combat system that relies on the “hit-a-button-and-wait” sensibilities of yesteryear, Tabula Rasa’s developers have managed to find a way to merge the intense action of an FPS game while still allowing for problems with lag, dropped packets, and disconnected servers. There are guns aplenty in Tabula Rasa, and you’ll find no end of enjoyment in this new interface.  

Storytelling is Richard Garriott's forte and you can tell TR is his game.

Despite having many RPG elements (which are explained further along in this section), you’ll initially find that the controls of Tabula Rasa function very similarly to that of a first person shooter. Initially, you’ll find that your view will be in a mouse-look mode, allowing you to aim your cross hairs at any opponent that may stumble into your path. Rather than always firing where the targeting reticule is located, Tabula Rasa features a “sticky” targeting system that allows a character to aim at a character in a general area. If your crosshairs pass over an enemy it “sticks” to that individual and allows you to pound away at the being without having to be pixel-precise with your aiming. Your left-mouse button fires your weapon – it can be held down for long bursts with your gun – while the right mouse button activates (or deactivates) whatever abilities you have selected.

However, with the press of a button you can go into the “inventory mode” that allows you to adjust character statistics, move equipment, and designate weapons and abilities. All of your information will be available on this screen, but as soon as you switch back to your “targeting mode” all of those extra pop-up displays will fall away. The clean cut look of the heads-up display in the targeting mode is just what this sort of game calls for. While you’re shooting your enemies, you don’t want to be hindered by abhorrent amounts of buttons and options. For new players, switching modes may seem a bit tricky at first, but you’ll get the hang of it within the initial tutorial.