MMO Weekly: The Rise Of Fallen Earth

29 Sep 2009 at 09:42:15 by Jeff Hollis

The Earth isn't just fallen, it's also full of junk. And that's an important part of the game, it seems.

This week's edition of MMO Weekly is, as you may have guessed, about the freshly launched post-apocalypic MMO, Fallen Earth. It's new, it's hot, and it has a fair number of folk excited to give this game a try.

Here are my initial impressions, in no particular order. I want to emphasise that these are *impressions*, as I haven't played the game enough to write a credible review. (Be warned, I'm in a mood, and will likely make fun of every single feature, even if I absolutely love it.) Anyway, here goes:

The world has been devastated by a combination of disease and nuclear war. Humanity is holed up to ride out the apocalypse in a series of underground bunkers. (Hmmmm. Where have I heard this before?) You, the player, are one of the folks that emerge. Oh, and there's lots of mutants out there, so be careful.

The game costs $49.99 USD via digital download. After you download it, you have to patch. That patch took about SIXTEEN FREAKIN HOURS to get done. I am not kidding or exaggerating in the slightest. The Fallen Earth community is, um, slightly displeased with this.

The entire game takes place in Arizona, specifically the area surrounding the Hoover Dam. This means that instead of showing us a devastated landscape in a place like New York, the developers decided to show us what a devastated Arizona would look like. Surprisingly, post-nuclear Arizona looks exactly like modern, contemporary Arizona.

Character creation is quite impressive. You have to be a human - there are no other races available - but there's a lot of variety. You have dozens of faces to choose from; after picking one, you customise the living heck out of your own face. Tattoos, piercings, face paint (it's more like war paint), many different hairstyles, variations in colouring, etc, etc, etc. There're a lot of options, and I guarantee no two characters will be alike.

Now, simply because it's my personal tradition, I made the ugliest character I possibly could. Tall, old and shriveled, with the ugliest face I could find, a bad red Mohawk, some nasty facial jewelry, and ugly face tats. Also, my war paint turned my face a nice shade of woad blue. So, I'm kind of like a punk William Wallace, but in the future, after a nuclear war. Sweet.

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