November 11, 2007
I’ve been going through the list of mmorpgs at MMORPG.com and was annoyed by the amount of very similar games. Unique concepts? Revolutionary gameplay? Nope. 90% are pretty much copies of other games with different packaging. It probably explains why I haven’t played a mmorpg for a few years. Tabula Rasa caught my eye a few months ago as a game that could be interesting and worthwhile to play, so here is some information about it:
A nice little feature of Tabula Rasa is a human-controlled main character that you can interact with. NPCs are boring and linear. We don’t have the technology yet to create intelligent AI characters. So it will be interesting to see how this Tabula Rasa concept will work out.
In the future an evil race called the Bane are on tour around the galaxy destroying planets, and killing organisms, including humans. You will be one of the few surviving humans who must halt the Bane’s destructive actions and save humanity. Okay not terribly original, but let’s not forget that this is mainly an FPS game full of fact-paced action. From what information is out there we can conclude that roleplaying will not be a significant part of the game. This could change later on when they add new content to the game.
Tabula Rasa launched a short while ago so check it out. There are several similar games planned for release in 2007/2008, so there will be plenty of choice for people who love mmofps games.
We’ve already seen and played enough of Tabula Rasa to have a pretty good idea of the game’s basics, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be surprised by some interesting decisions the developers are making. Today at GDC we had the chance to chat with Starr Long and see another demo of the game. It didn’t contain much information that we hadn’t seen or heard before, but we did learn a bit about the Spy class’s impressive new Polymorph ability.
This late game ability requires the use of a number of specific Logos symbols to transmute the Spy’s appearance to that of one of his or her many enemies. Once the power is unlocked, the Spy has the ability to turn into a general rank and file unit but as the power is upgraded, the Spy can take on the form of more and more powerful units.
For several articles about Tabula Rasa, go to IGN.
