Per D, I thought I've been playing this game for the last couple of days. I saw this game on Steam's Free to Play list and thought I'd give it a whirl. I've probably put about 5 hours into it, so keep that in mind. I tried playing it last weekend, but the servers were down for 2 days. I guess that isn't surprising given that it just got put on Steam.
It's an MMOFPS with 4 classes: Assault (heavy), Medic (healer), Recon (light), and Tech guy (forget the real name). I've played the Recon guy and the Medic, but I have put most of my time into the medic.
Gameplay is good so far. It feels like Tribes/Tribes 2 from what I played of those games. You get a jet pack, a melee weapon, 2 ranged ones, and then some offhand stuff (grenades/other abilities).
The game starts off with an instanced PVE of sorts. AI ranges from ok to pretty bad. They will automatically start attacking you once you fire at them, but if you do not engage them, they will sometimes let you get extremely close without attacking (10 feet ish). Once they start attacking, they are mostly predictable in that they will fire while strafing/running for cover. They are very accurate. Hit detection seems generous, but this is a must with the MMOFPS I'd bet (this is my first one).
Once you finish the prologue, you are tossed into the capital city (of which there appears to be one). You get some missions where you run around and chat with some people and they show you how to do basic things, like spend skill points (talent trees). From there, you are sent into the desert to do some questing. The questing is basic but decent. Nothing mindblowing here, but what you would expect in an MMO (kill quests, plant this here quest, go see X quest, etc).
I just finished the questing in the desert. Apparently this is the only zone in the game for leveling.
Missions are what you do after this to level. I've probably done 7 or so thus far. They are teams of 4 people who group up to go through a level and kill a big boss at the end. You can queue for them at any time and you'll join a random team. I assume you can also queue with your friends. No one is social (in fact, I've been the only one to say anything in any of my groups), but the groups seem to mostly work out ok. Difficulty is pretty low. Healing is pretty fun. You have a few different options. Number one is your healing gun. Think the Medigun from TF2. You have an AOE heal in the form of a healing grenade, although this is harder to use. And you also have a powerful self heal.
I've only done 1 pvp match, but the game seems to focus on them. It was a blast, and I had no idea what I was doing. Even as a medic, I have decent offensive capabilities, so I never felt too restrained. We did a control point sort of map with 3 points. It's a bit chaotic with everyone flying around and shit, but it is fun in a frantic sort of way. I also didn't feel seriously outgunned even though I had no gear (and I killed quite a few people).
Graphics are great. Definitely more than you would expect from a free game. There are some serious clipping errors at times, but it is bearable. The UI is pretty good as well. Your health and power are position right at the center of the screen for easy viewing. Your power drains as you use your jet and as you fire your weapons/medigun.
The community seems ok. From what I can tell, there's only one server for everyone. Not really sure how cohesive the community is since you have a 'dungeon finder' of sorts, and there are no professions (that I know of) or anything to really force people to talk even. There are guilds but I wouldn't even know how to find one. General chat in the city is WoW-like (IE hazing new people, random arguments about classes, trolling, etc).
There are also raids, but only during specific times. Not sure when that is, but I'm sure I am too low to play in them right now.
While it is free to play, there are a lot of apparent perks for subscribers. It shows you the extra loot you would get after each dungeon/mission if you were a better subscriber. Meh. Other than that, not really sure what the differences are.
Anyway, I've rambled on for long enough. If anyone wants to play, let me know! I don't really have anything else to play, so I'll probably keep doing this for a bit.
