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From:NCsoft
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#4301 |
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 A Good Deal with a Caveat, 2008-09-30
Tabula Rasa is an interesting combination of first-person shooter and a role-playing game with character advancement similar to many fantasy games. This package includes the install DVD and a lengthy user manual. Reading the tiny type in the manual will save you dozens of hours of trial and error. I advise that you download the manual from the Tabula Rasa site and read it on-screen -- the type is much more readable!
I thought buying this package would save me from having to download the 3+GB client software, but nope, as soon as I installed from the DVD I then had to download the upgrade to the latest version which was, you guessed it -- 3+GB!
 Tabula Rasa, 2008-09-29
Excellent Game. I had a lot of fun playing it, altho' most of the time I was playing solo. Not as easy to get into some groups for things in this game as it is to get into groups for some other games.
I still had a very very fun time playing it and I definitely recommend at least trying it out if you haven't.
Not what it was at launch, and that's a good thing., 2008-09-20
A very well done game, contrary to what a lot of people have said. Most of the negative opinions are either based on the beta product or the launch version. It's been patched, expanded, and polished. I really disliked this game -- a lot -- at launch. As a gamer I can say this is easily one of the best games out there. 4.99 plus 30 days? I mean, come on, how can you not try it? Give it a shot...an exceptional game that has come a long, long way.
Recent Changes Make Game Real Fun, 2008-09-19
My husband and I tried the trial for Tabula Rasa expecting it to be all right, but nothing great. We were pleasantly surprised to discover the game is pretty polished and great fun, especially in the PvE that feels like PvP (that is, base defense). We have been told the game had serious problems at launch because it was rushed shortly after a major overhaul, but it doesn't feel problem laden now. The community is intelligent and entertaining. We doubt we'll stick with the game forever, but it's certainly worth some time and money. The game looks and feels like a heavy mix of FPS and RPG, and it's a healthy mix, not a problematic one.
3 of 3 customers found the following review helpful:
 A blend of MMO and FPS, not quite there, 2008-07-26
I have played quite a few different MMOs in my time (EQ, DAOC, UO, WoW, E&B, CoH/V). So, when I saw there was a new tech based MMO out there, I decided to give it a shot. I was not an early adopter, having started some 6 months or more after TR's release.
First, the good.
The graphics are actually quite good. Not stellar, to be sure, but some of the details and customization options are interesting, and the graphics work well with the play style.
The game play itself was actually quite fun. I enjoy FPS games, which TR was VERY similar to.
Essentially all the classes are solo-able to a greater or lesser degree. In fact, I found some of the most solo-able classes to not be the more pure damage dealer types (the tank-ish classes), but rather the more support types. The simple reason for this being self-sufficiency.
I very much enjoyed the crafting system, which functioned not as a build your own weapon/armor system, but as a way to add-on to or enhance items that you purchased or found.
I also liked the leveling. It was reasonably quick. The skill-up and attribute-up method made me feel I was always improving my characters the way I wanted to (or at least planning to improve in a specific way, for more costly improvements).
The middle.
The storyline, while interesting, was a trifle shallow, and lacked any significant end game content.
The bad.
Overall, the game felt far more like a first person shooter, in fact a SINGLE person, than an MMO. The chat system was atrocious, and had absolutely no feasible way to search for people to group with (unless you already knew someone's name, you couldn't search for them). As an MMO that alone would be nearly fatal. Being able to group up with people is one of the main reasons to play an MMO (and pay a monthly subscription fee), if that doesn't work well, there is a big problem. Oh, btw, I was also specifically choosing the higher populated servers to play on in order to increase my chances of finding people. Didn't help.
Bugs. I personally experienced several bugs which seriously altered the game play and appearance; I will mention two here. One was that even at low graphics settings (and the automatic detection TR used said that my system could handle very high settings) my characters would frequently freeze in position. Frame rates were low (never got them more than 30 or so and 20 was more common, which is very low for my system in most games), but I do not believe the issue was related to that. Even at 20 frames I would expect choppy movement at worst, not frozen. I could still act and move, but I couldn't see anything happening, which made game play a little less interesting, and at time a bit more challenging (am I firing? did I crouch yet?). The other most significant bug was that at times my characters would be launched into the air, more or less at random. This meant that I couldn't move or interact with the world, thus making that specific character unplayable until the system somehow corrected itself and "put me down". This was often fatal, since it sometimes (not always) made me 'fall' from the height I was supposedly at. This second bug was acknowledged by a couple of the support folks I spoke to, but never resolved in two months of play (yes, I gave the game two months).
A couple good ideas the designers had were very poorly implemented. For example, one of the aiming mechanics for many guns was called beading. In this, you had to actually hold your aim point on a target for a period of time in order to do full damage. That's fine, but you also had to crouch and remain still to get the full effect. Which works not at all in a game where there are many mobs trying to attack you at one time, many of which can run up and do heinous damage in melee. Another example is the cover idea. Great idea, you crouch or even stand behind (remember beading) something and you take less damage from incoming attacks. Problem one, as mentioned above, multiple mobs, often from multiple directions, are coming after you, so while you might have cover from one thing, you won't from others. Problem two, cover, again, makes you stationary. Problem three (and the biggest), the LOS calculations were not readily apparent, and at times even with my view zoomed all the way (looking out of the eyes of my character, so to speak) with my gun clearly visible OVER the barrier in front of me, I found myself doing no damage because I was shooting the barrier (even with a bead) not the target. And of course, I was being shot for heavy damage by the same mob at the same time. So, you could never tell if you were going to actually get cover, how effective it was going to be, how much cover the mobs had, and if you were even going to be able to shoot past whatever unapparent barriers were in your way.
So, ultimately, this game, to me, was simply not worth the time and money expenditure. While I like MMOs and FPS games, this was too close to the latter, lacking depth and the social element. If you want another FPS, try half-life 2 or one of the other ones out these days. A decent effort, but not up to snuff.
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