Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Little Stuart put up an attitude when I walked into their strike line.

The sense of humor I'd seen displayed earlier had given me a little bit of hope for the game. Sadly, that hope turned out to be that slight feeling of floating on air you experience in the scant seconds before the roller coaster you're riding reaches the top of its initial descent and plummets into the pits of doom. The combat in Secondhand Lands is a sorry excuse in every sense of the word. Animations are minimal at best, and the stuttering pace of battle will have you begging for your computer monitor to blow up in your face just to end the pain.

When you level up you'll gain points to add to various skill trees and to test the system, I chose to continually put all of my points into a single skill (Bite) to see if I noticed any difference. Perhaps at some point in time, you'll hit a magic number that allows you to feel more powerful, but I never reached it. After spending a number of points in Bite (and Bite alone), I never saw *any* noticeable difference in the damage I was inflicting.

I will give the team points in their attempt to make things easy to learn in the game. Every character starts out with their own little Fairy Helper. Not only will she cast much needed healing spells while you're getting your hindquarters kicked all over the place, she'll also continually give you pieces of advice. These little pearls of wisdom can be anything from a key combination to access your skills window to general tips about the game. All in all, I actually found her quite useful and I'd highly recommend that developers check out this little helper to see how a quality tutorial aid can be implemented into a game without being obnoxious.

At the end of the day, I have to say that unless you have a disturbing need to relive your early childhood or are looking for a game that should be safe for your six year old to play, you should probably avoid Secondhand Lands. I imagine a young child may find some enjoyment out of the game, but since I'm not a very young child, nor do I have any, don't take my word for it. If you're interested, I'm sure the Secondhand Lands team would love for you to give the game a try for yourself.