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

When you’re actually playing the game, you can’t help but notice the speed of the gameplay. Guys and gals with swords, clubs, staffs, and scimitars will be flying around you, often with the intent of pulverizing your body to a bloody pulp. Often, you find that two players are ganging up against the rest of you – even in the “free-for-all” of bloodbath – but the momentum will suddenly turn when all the other players realize their strategy and game up against the two of them.

At first, you may feel a bit overwhelmed, as you might continually die due to a poor strategy or an excessively skilled rival. However, at the end of the seven-minute bloodbath – and it could be appropriately titled for your first go – you’ll find that you’ve received a couple pieces of loot and a decent amount of silver and copper for your efforts. No matter how many times you die, or how poorly you do, you’ll always receive some sort of reward for your efforts. The best rewards do come for the best players, but the more loot you collect, the more abilities you’ll be able to buy and the better you will become.

The tutorial area is pretty, but I found that I got lost very easily in the "main" portion of the game's central hub.

Despite your personal need for quality gear and more money, gear and monetary goods are a relatively small part of the entire Fury equation. Player skill – both inside the arena and in selecting a quality stratagem – will be at the forefront of Fury. As you progress through the levels, you’ll notice that some of your abilities simply aren’t as effective as others (why choose to include a Growth School ability when you’re so Life focused?), but you’ll also come to learn that there are some high-quality combos out there for players who learn to use their abilities right.

Using these abilities is also the key to unlocking other abilities that are available to your character. Although many of the abilities in Fury can be purchased from vendors, you can save money and advance your character progression by completing certain “Trials” that NPCs will give you. Like quests, Trials require you to generate a certain amount of “Essence” from whatever school they are from – Death, Life, Decay, or Growth. Gaining Essence is possible by simply using your abilities in the game. For example, my Champion is very Life School focused and when I use his “Frost Strike” ability, I gain Life essence. If you’re trying to complete certain trials available to your character, simple use that ability more in combat.

Though the gameplay itself revolves around combat, I’ve heard a few resignations about the “tutorial” portion of the game not giving enough prompts to players who are interested in exploring other schools. For example, if you’re a Champion and want to attain some different abilities or complete different trials, you have to find the abilities vendor on your own. The tutorial doesn’t point you in the right direction. In fact, with so many players operating on the Fury servers, it was hard to find the “Warmasters” that allowed you to enter the queue for your various arena challenges. I completely missed them the first time through, and it took a restart of the game client for me to find them again.

By completing trials, your character will gain higher ranks or “level up”. Once a certain number of trials are completed, your character gains his new rank, which allows him to use more abilities and equip more pieces of armor or weapons from his inventory. It’s a fairly sleek system, and you’ll rarely find yourself conversing with NPCs to simply “deliver a message” or “give them some items”. All of your abilities, rewards, and monetary funds are earned through combat.

Although I rarely ventured out of the Bloodbath scenario, the other options – Vortex and Elimination – were as compelling if not more so for those gamers that are looking for a different selection than the simple, “Kill’em all!” arena contest. Every portion of the game, however, is going to have player versus player combat as a crucial part of the gameplay. Fury isn’t for the weak-hearted.

Here I am waiting to do my first battleground encounter. I haven't even dropped my abilities into my hotkey bar yet!

As a player, I found that most of my success came by closing to melee range. Despite some early losses to spell-tossing ranged attackers, once I learned to use my “Raid” ability in conjunction with a few Frost Strikes, I was quickly cutting down my enemies before me. Every player will have to find their own strategies, but mine focused around a quick slice and dice with whatever weapon I happened to be holding at the time.

The C.O.O. of Ten Ton Hammer, John “Boomjack” Hoskin, was also playing the game this weekend and echoed my sentiment about closing in to melee combat range, albeit from the opposite standpoint. After choosing the Defiler class as his pick, John stated, “The ranged attacks that do 100 damage a pop don't hold a candle to that guy mashing 500 points off my face with his sword.”

That was me, John. I’m sorry. Please don’t fire me.

Where it stands now, Fury looks like it could be an incredibly impressive game, one that will garner the attention of many PvP and FPS fans throughout the world. The quick gameplay, social features, and team-based killing modes will attract gamers from all different genres, lending credence to its potential to succeed in the general gaming marketplace.

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

Check out all of our previews!