This is The new MMORPG that wants
to survive the massive challenge, trying to stay alive amongst the other games
of the genre. I am of course talking about World of Warcraft, as well as the
very recent The Elder Scrolls Online. So what does this game have the others do
not? What is it that makes WildStar so different from the others that would
give you a good reason to choose this one, instead of any other MMORPG?
Don't want to read the whole thing, where I talk about the game and my opinions? You may skip to the recap and final score at the end of this review.
Keep in mind that during this beta test I only got to play as human exile engineer, so there are still more to explore for me as well. I will get to the other stuff in the next beta test with a video review.
Introduction
There are two factions: The
Dominion and The Exiles. They have just discovered the planet Nexus, and they
cannot seem to really agree on which one of them should have this planet of
legends, powerful technology and mystery. Thus, guns and blades become their
solution. The Dominion is a powerful galactic empire, with a mix of assassin
robots, bloodthirsty beats, tiny and crazy Chua thingies, and on the top, we
have the Cassian, humans from planet Cassas described as wealthy, disciplined
and superior. On the other side, we have gigantic golems, tree-hugging forest
dwellers, space zombies, and the exile finest: The human rebels.
You can choose between six classes in
the game, and they have been able to make all of them sound quite interesting.
You have the warrior, described as the unstoppable juggernauts of brutality and
combat. The Spellslinger, with lightning reflexes, quick draw skills and arcane
sorcery. The Esper, masters of psionic illusion, using their minds to conjure
deadly apparitions and extrasensory weaponry. The Engineer unleashes
destructive long-ranged attacks while deploying powerful bots. The Stalker, silent
and deadly assassins, using advanced stealth technology to stalk and painfully
eviscerate their foes. The Medic specialized in battlefield support, using
their arsenal of gadgets to heal their friends and liquidate their enemies.
Once finished with quite the detailed
character creation process, you have the basic MMORPG beginning. “Oh who ever
will help us with this problem? The horror! Oh, wait, what is this? A hero has
arrived!” Not quite yet treated as a hero in this game, sure enough, you are
the only one who can solve a specific problem, and so you have started your quest
line. The beginning stage is quite OK, as you get to know the controls, the
fighting, and item collection and so on.
The unique thing
Before I get to my point, the game
offers something else. Paths. You can choose from four Paths. The explorer, the
soldier, the settler and the scientist. Each one giving the player a different
view of the world. While the settler builds useful and decorative structures,
that other players can actually use, the scientist gets to explore more of the
world, study it and unlock its secrets.
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| Constructing barricades. Settlers make a huge difference in the world of Nexus. |
Now this is where I believe
WildStar is doing a very good job. Variation. Even early in the game, you get
to play around with other stuff, like the Paths. This is optional though, so if
you are not like me and want to stay on your main quest or quests in general,
you can absolutely do that, but I can easily get tired of questing, so they
have given me many options. I was running around collection recourses, and then
using these to build NPC defense plots and healing boost stations. The cool
thing is that other players can benefit from this. It is a lot of fun to see
that things you do as a settler really does affect the world.
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| Defuseing landmines is one of the many interesting challenges. |
Another thing they have done is
adding challenges around on the map. This varies from climbing a mountain fast
enough, killing a number of enemies in a certain time, or disarming bombs
before they explode. These variations, the fact that you can easily go and do
something else for a while, really helps the game a lot, and kept me playing.
On top of this, there are mini-quests that pop up while you do other stuff,
often something to do with the quest you are currently working on. A message
could ask you to help a trapped miner, or freeing caged animals. This is yet
again optional, but adds a lot to the game.
The gameplay
Now as far as the movement and
fighting goes, it actually feels very good. The movement is slightly unusual at
first, but you quickly get used to it. Especially in combat, fast movement is
key. Now this is because the game runs a unique fighting system, as they use a
wide range of different AOE (area of effect) attacks. Early in the game, these
are quite slow and easy to dodge, but it gets more and more challenging, not to
mention interesting.
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| Stuff everywhere! Still, the combat is very fun. |
(The AOE combat explained: An area
in front of, or around and enemy, will light up with transparent red. It will increase
the intensity of the color, up to a solid red color. This indicates the time of
when the AOE attack will occur. If you are still standing inside this area, you
will take extra damage and negative effects. These attacks can be
fire-breathing monsters in a cone in front of it, bomb planting pirate and thus
a circle around him, or a warrior with a sword slashing away at you.
Now your skills are mostly AOE
skills. Similarly, you will charge a light blue area in front/around you, which
increases in strength until a solid blue and the skill activates. This requires
the player to aim the skills in order to hit the enemies, as well as try to
make it as effective as possible. There are also combos, since using skills in
the right order will position you correctly, and deal extra damage. All of this
while you try to avoid enemy AOE. Now, this could sound complicated and stressful,
but all the action this gives is extremely enjoyable, and it really is not that
complicated.)
Now before I finish of there are a
couple smaller things. First of I like a lot how the game looks. The landscape
when you look at it from a mountain is epic. The music is fine, though I did
not pay much attention to it. Then there is the fact that it is still a beta,
so I encountered some bugs here and there, but this was solved with a simple
/stuck, and it will most likely be fixed before the release.
My final thoughts
All right. Well I really, very much
enjoyed the combat system. The action packed fights were fun, dodge some AOE,
fire away, send my bots to attack for me (playing engineer). The movement is
good. Some gravity jumps needed some getting used to, as well as the double
jump, but then it works fine. I love the huge variation. There is simply a ton of
options in this game. The races, the classes, the paths, and then the skill
system is very nice. On top of this, there is the fact that you can build your
own house, but this I did not really get into. Player vs Player is also
something I did not get to this time, but this weekend there is another beta
test, and I will be playing more of this.
As a person that easily gets tired
of MMORPGs, I can still recommend this. I had a lot of fun, mostly because I got
the option to leave the quest line and sort of do my own thing. I felt free to
do what I wanted, and it felt great.
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| Epic landscape. Quite early in the starting area. |
Recap
Story: Now as the exiles you don't exactly start of as the one and only hero, as in many other games. You are more like the only guy that's at the right place at the right time, and you'll have to do. Your respect as a great person has to be earned, which is quite refreshing as I feel that most games tells you that you are The One And Only from the beginning. As soon as you finish a few starting quests, you have the option to leave the main quest line, and do pretty much what you want to. I felt free to do what I wanted, and it felt great.
Gameplay: The combat and movement is very different from any other MMORPG. WildStar uses a wide variation of AOE (Area of Effect) attacks, that you often have to dodge. The players skills mostly consists of these attacks as well, so you really have to move to the correct position in order to deal the most damage. The movement helps this out a lot, as you can roll around and double jump in and out of battle with ease.
Graphics: The game looks amazing. It's colorful and nice to look at. When you get to the top of a mountain, not difficult with the jumping in the game, you get an epic view of the vast landscape. Awesome looking structures, floating mysterious gems, and a weather that really makes a nice finish to it. The game also looks very good when it turns to night. The cutscenes look very good, some of them has some cool action as well, like a ship getting shot down.
Sound: The sound of combat works very well. You can hear it as an enemy is charging up its special attack, and you'll know that you want to get out of there. The voice acting is good, not much to say about it. The music I didn't pay much attention to, as I was consumed by everything else. Will have to get back to that next beta.
The Score
Now I will not claim that I know 100% what I'm talking about, and you should not trust my final score for this game only. Yes, you might even have a different opinion, but I will still try my best to give this game what I believe would be a fair score. This score will not be any further explained, it is based on my experience playing the game, my opinion on the game, which is explained in the text above. Without further ado, the score I will be giving WildStar is:
Score: 6/7
Score: 6/7
Finally, I would recommend watching
their trailers for the game, especially the Dominion and Exile introductions.
Highly entertaining and well made.
- Neollok
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