Aion Review

• Add Game
• Tag
• Print
• Email
• Facebook
• Digg
• Tweet

Aion Review

This fantasy massively multiplayer online game makes a great first impression, but almost every aspect of it devolves into a grind before you're even halfway to the level cap.

The Good

• Visuals impress both technically and artistically  
• First 10 to 12 levels are a joy to play  
• Fast-paced and intuitive combat system.

The Bad

• Grinding quickly becomes an obtrusively big part of gameplay  
• Servers seem unable to cope with large-scale PVP battles  
• Invisible walls make flying much less fun than it should be  
• Sound design is all over the place.

Upon entering Aion's world for the first time, you can't help but notice how beautiful it is, and for the first few hours it seems that as much attention has been lavished on the engaging quests and interesting characters as has on the CryEngine-powered visuals. Play past the first dozen or so character levels though, and Aion's grind-happy design becomes increasingly apparent. Non-player characters with stories to tell make way for others who might as well be notice boards, and quests that are at least somewhat imaginative early on are replaced with a mind-numbing mix of deliver, fetch, kill, and collect objectives. Aion does a lot of things right, and it looks great doing them, but ultimately, you're too busy grinding while playing it to care or, perhaps, even notice.

The starter zones are beautifully crafted and feature step-by-step tutorials.

Even before you enter the postcataclysm world of Atreia, Aion impresses with its incredibly robust character creation system. The extensive customization options are more reminiscent of those in sports games than in other massively multiplayer online offerings, and after choosing one of the two factions and one of the four starting classes to play as, you could easily spend an hour or two perfecting your character's look. In the wrong hands, though, tools likes these can be too powerful as players go out of their way to create the most ridiculous and improbable avatars imaginable. Thankfully, heads and arms that are far too big for the bodies they're attached to aren't a common sight, but characters at both ends of the size scale definitely are. That wouldn't be a problem, except that the extremes are so far apart--diminutive characters are dwarfed by even the insects and other small enemies that you fight early on and are barely waist high to players who opt for the Aion equivalent of Andre the Giant. Jarringly, animations of the small characters are sped up significantly so that they can move around at the same speed as everyone else while large characters run in slow motion. The end result is that you're constantly being reminded that you're playing a game and that not everyone you're playing with has the same goals.
When deciding which faction to play as, you’ll notice few distinguishing characteristics separating the Elyos and Asmodian races; they're functionally identical and even their appearances aren't dramatically different. The most obvious distinction is that the Elyos have white wings while the Asmodians' are black. The latter also have talons on their hands and feet and dull gray skin, while the former look more or less human. Classes are the same for both races, and although there are ultimately eight, you initially get to choose from only four. That might sound restrictive, but it's actually a great system because rather than forcing you to choose your class right away, it affords you 10 levels to decide which of the more specialized classes you want to pursue. For example, after playing for 10 levels as a damage-dealing scout, you can opt to specialize in either ranged combat as a ranger or melee combat as an assassin. You won't necessarily have had a lot of experience with both options when the time comes to make your choice, but some is better than none.

Character creation is something that you might have a little too much fun with.

Combat in Aion isn't radically different from that in other MMO games, but it does place a greater emphasis on skills and abilities that chain together to form combos. Many moves can only be performed during a short window immediately after another move is performed, and conveniently these moves are automatically mapped to the same key. For example, your first attack might have a 100 percent chance of making a second attack available to you that, in turn, has a 25 percent chance of triggering a third. Rather than having to assign these three different moves to three different keys, they're automatically mapped to just one key so that you can press 1-1-1 rather than 1-2-3. Furthermore, the cooldown indicators for these moves are superimposed alongside your character during combat, so you know exactly when they become available to you without having to take your eyes off the action. It's a great system because it not only makes the occasionally spectacular-looking combos easy to perform, but it also dramatically cuts down on the number of buttons that you need to arrange on your screen. The only downside is that--particularly when fighting against the various creatures and humanoid enemies that inhabit Atreia--combat can feel like an extended quick-time event in which you do little more than respond to onscreen prompts.
That's because once you've devised an efficient attack rotation, very few of the enemies you encounter force you to deviate it from it. They might prevent you from finishing a chain or incapacitate you temporarily, but the moment you regain control you can generally just pick up where you left off. That's not to say that enemies in Aion are pushovers, because they're not. Enemies around your level will often manage to take a chunk of your health before you finish them off, and--depending on which class you're playing as--enemies that are two or more levels higher than you can pose a real threat if you don't have any health and/or mana potions in your inventory. When you're not rolling with a well-rounded group that has both a tank and a healer, you should expect there to be plenty of downtime between your fights. You can sit down in order to speed up your health and mana regeneration, but it's still not quick, and you're vulnerable to attack the whole time you're on the ground. But, you're not necessarily any safer up in the air.

Focus too much on quest objectives on the ground and you might be caught off-guard by enemies swooping from above.

Surprisingly, whether you're on foot or flying, combat isn't that different. You have to be aware of enemies at different altitudes, of course, and there are certain moves that are more useful in the air than on the ground, but the hardest (or most frustrating, at least) thing to get used to is the idea that you can only fly or glide for a limited amount of time before you become exhausted and fall out of the sky. Prior to gaining access to gear and wing augmentations that increase your flight time, you have only about a minute before you have to return to the ground and spend another minute regaining your strength to be able to fly for that amount of time again. This makes flying, which should be one of Aion's most unique and exciting features, something of a chore at times and downright infuriating at others. Frequently, when flying in quest areas, you hit invisible walls and are told that you're entering an area where flight is impossible. There's no attempt to justify this grounding, but it's clear that the majority of quest zones were not designed with flight-capable players in mind. Even those zones where flight is permitted very rarely put their verticality to good use. Rather, quest objectives are still found almost exclusively on the ground while materials that can be collected and used for crafting float above.

Star Trek: D-A-C Review

Blandly go where no Star Trek game has gone before in this unexciting multiplayer shoot-'em-up.

The Good

• Conquest and Assault modes are fun in small doses  
• Survival mode is a nice, fast-paced addition .

The Bad

• The license has little impact on the game  
• The new missile cruiser class isn't fun to use  
• Loose controls make for unrewarding shooting  
• Dumb AI leads to frustrations.

Deathmatch, Assault, Conquest: These game modes form the acronym in Star Trek: D-A-C's unusually uninspired title. While the game was first released to Xbox Live Arcade in May of 2009, the more recent PlayStation and PC versions add new ships and other new features in an apparent effort to enhance the shallow original. (It's worth noting that the Xbox 360 version has since been updated to include all of the features of the more recent versions.) The additions are welcome, in particular the single-player Survival mode that pits you against increasingly more challenging waves of enemies. However, the D-A-C experience is still characterized by its bland top-down space combat, which is pleasant in small doses but lacks the thrills of other shoot-'em-ups. Furthermore, the game does not reflect the wonders of the franchise, thus making the license seem less of an inspiration and more like window dressing.

Survival mode features some pretty backgrounds.

Basic gameplay is standard fare for a shoot-'em-up. The three ships of the original Xbox 360 release--the fighter, the bomber, and the flagship--appear in this edition. Fighters shoot lasers, bombers drop bombs behind them that explode a moment later, and flagships let you hover a reticle over your target and let loose a blast of energy. The two additions for the new version are the missile cruiser, which moves slowly and fires balls of energy that may be charged up to do even more damage, and the support frigate, which emits a steady beam that can damage enemies but is more useful for restoring health and power to other ships. In most modes, you choose to fight for either the Federation or the Romulans, but while the ship designs are different for each faction, the ship classes play the exact same way. Once you choose a ship type and a faction, you do battle with AI-controlled enemies or fellow human combatants.
The two new ships bulk up the possibilities, but they don't do much to energize the action. The new missile cruiser moves slowly and shoots slowly, and while its laserballs do a lot of damage and even hit enemies offscreen, it controls too sluggishly to feel satisfying. In fact, that looseness is part of the experience regardless of the ship you select. The floaty controls might be meant to approximate what it would be like to fly in the vacuum of space, but their imprecision saps much of the excitement. Rather than the quick and accurate moving and shooting you would hope for, you get loose turning and a slower rate of fire than you would expect, which is further limited by your ship's quick-to-diminish power reserves. Power-ups add a bit of variety, letting you create a clone of your ship to fight alongside you or giving you a temporary cloak, among other possibilities. But the power-ups do little to make the action more compelling, so while you might get enjoyment out of two or three successive matches, Star Trek: D-A-C gets tiresome quickly.

The Romulans are coming. Quick, look busy!

Team Deathmatch is the most predictable and least exciting of the three competitive modes, because it relies solely on the dull shooting to entertain. Conquest and Assault modes are a better source of amusement. In Conquest, you take over the map by capturing rings, which keeps the action concentrated on a small number of hot spots. Assault works similarly, only an assaulting team must capture the rings in sequence on its way to the defending team's base, while the defenders must thwart the assaulting team's plans. The newer version gives Assault mode a twist, adding turret defenses and a final base assault that the attacking team must undertake, assuming it makes it that far. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find many competitors on either the PC or the PS3, which means that available slots in online games will be filled by AI players. Star Trek D-A-C's AI isn't very good. This is most noticeable in Conquest, where the entirety of your computer-controlled team will clump together in a single capture ring and ignore what is happening elsewhere, and multiple AI-controlled support frigates may follow you about and restore your health at the expense of other ships in greater need.
The most notable addition to this version is that of Survival, which is a single-player mode in which you fend off waves of enemies that become harder and harder to defeat. It's the new D-A-C's best add-on, because the action occurs at a faster pace than in other modes and leads to attractive displays of laser fire and explosions. But Survival also highlights the floaty controls, which make it difficult to evade the balls of energy that missile cruisers lob at you and to grab the power-ups and point-increasing drops that destroyed ships leave behind. Nor is there any context for this mode, or any other mode. There is no story, no introduction, nor even a voice-over telling you to boldly go where no man has gone before. It's just one-off matches, and were it not for the naming conventions, ship designs, and melodramatic soundtrack, you'd never know this was a Star Trek game.

Expect to have the AI fill most of the slots when you play online.

Star Trek: D-A-C's sole spark of originality is that upon defeat, you eject a speedy escape pod that you can control. If you can avoid enemy fire for a few seconds, your ship will spawn back onto the battlefield more quickly than if your pod is destroyed. Otherwise, this is a humdrum top-down shooter that neither takes advantage of its illustrious license, nor supplies the explosive joy you'd seek from the best shoot-'em-ups. The mild pleasures D-A-C initially offers are soon replaced with apathy for its shallow and repetitive gameplay. The improvements over the original release are notable, but they don't remove the game's fundamental flaws--they only veil them.

Tales of Monkey Island Review

Once clear of its port of origin, this clever, humorous tale unfurls its sails and becomes a thoroughly entertaining swashbuckling adventure.

The Good

• Quirky sense of humor  
• Engaging, superbly voiced characters  
• Charming cartoon aesthetic  
• Story full of fun twists and turns  
• Some clever puzzles.

The Bad

• Occasional presentation hitches  
• Some slow parts  
• Puzzles are generally easy.

The beloved adventure game franchise Monkey Island set sail on a new episodic journey earlier this year and has recently come into port with its fifth and final episode. Tales of Monkey Island chronicles the further adventures of Guybrush Threepwood--Mighty Pirate--as he pursues his often-imperiled wife, Elaine, and tries to vanquish his nemesis, LeChuck. Yet this tale is no heroic cliche, and it takes some amusing twists and unconventional turns. The relationships between lead characters are the engaging heart of the story, while the supporting cast and wacky environments provide ample opportunity for humor. This is a funny game, and though there are some lulls in the otherwise lively pace, the clever puzzles and the playful ways you have to go about solving them will keep you entertained for the duration. Tales of Monkey Island is a lengthy adventure that's easy to enjoy and easy on your wallet, as well as sure to please both newcomers and veteran insult swordfighters alike.

Guybrush enlists some simian aid to help him escape the clutches of the maniacal Marquis.

• Comment on this video
• Watch this video in High Def

The first episode, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, starts off where you might expect an adventure game to end, with you (as Guybrush) poised to deal the killing blow to LeChuck and rescue Elaine. Naturally, things don't quite work out as planned, and this sets the tone for the adventure to come. Tales of Monkey Island doesn't stick to predictable conventions, and it doesn't resort to merely flipping these conventions on their heads. It puts a whole different spin on things, creating adventurous and refreshingly odd situations. Yet the game doesn't get bogged down in weirdness or whimsy and continues at a good clip from episode to episode. The story moves nicely among brisk action sequences, thoughtful puzzle wrangling, and expository cutscenes. Though there is occasional downtime, and the first episode feels a bit like taxiing out of the harbor, Tales of Monkey Island cuts through the water at a good pace, keeping you interested and amused throughout the 15-to-20-hour adventure.
Yet it's not just the strange situations you find yourself in that make the game so engaging but the people that populate this whimsical Caribbean. The lead characters are clear standouts because they have fleshed-out personalities and interesting relationships. Guybrush is a goofy hero who would just as soon chew gum stuck on a window ledge as pull out his sword, and it's impressive that his well-meaning-yet-somewhat-bungling heroism shtick never really gets old. Elaine is much more on the ball, and her spirited independence and occasional exasperation with her husband are sweetly countenanced by her steadfast love for him. The evolution of Guybrush's relationship with Morgan LeFlay from The Siege of Spinner Cay (Ep. 2) through Rise of the Pirate God (Ep. 5) is another emotional (and comical) high point, and LeChuck's personality overhaul is a clever inversion of his traditionally evil role. The superb voice acting and great dialogue bring these and other characters to life remarkably well. Although the lead characters are definitely more interesting, even the assorted pirates, brigands, and lawyers you come across have a spark of personality.
Guybrush Threepwood is a guy who gets things done with brains over brawn (most of the time), and there are a lot of items to pick up and puzzles to work out across the five episodes. Though you'll occasionally use a sword to chop things or a bomb to blow things up, most of the other items and actions stick to the humorous and eccentric vibe. Some puzzles rely on inventory you picked up in earlier adventures (perhaps even an earlier episode), while many have their own self-contained set of objects. For example, at one point, you need to gather objects for a spell by deciphering a riddle then use your wits and your inventory to acquire the right ingredients. Other puzzles rely on dialogue, like Guybrush's attempt to help a lonely creature woo its mate using only a handful of lines from a travel phrasebook. Some puzzles combine both items and dialogue, like Guybrush's courtroom foray in The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood (Ep. 4). Tales of Monkey Island crafts these puzzles in a variety of clever ways, and though you will notice that some quest structures are repeated, this repetition is not frequent enough to feel stale. Solutions are generally pretty easy to figure out, though some of the more obtuse ones can be quite tricky. Usually, you can talk to folks and explore the limited area to gather clues, but if you get really stuck, just bump up the hint frequency and Guybrush will chime in with a helpful observation.

Two lady corsairs fighting over Guybrush? Say it is so!

Throughout the course of five episodes, you travel to many different parts of the Caribbean (and beyond!). You make first landfall in a small town with a pirate court, an exclusive nightclub, a mad scientist's house, and the Blow Me Down Glassworks. While this first episode feels a bit slow compared to subsequent episodes, you soon venture out into (and under) the sea, visiting a number of other islands, including the seat of government for an underwater society. And the title of episode three, Lair of the Leviathan, gives you a pretty big clue as to its unique setting. It's fun to travel through the quirky, colorful environments, and revisiting places you've been in previous episodes gives a nice sense of continuity. The cartoony visual style contributes to the game's lighthearted mood, though you will notice some visual oddities from time to time. And there is some frame rate slowdown during action heavy scenes or when Guybrush is running around. The audio also suffers occasional hitches, but for the most part, the sound effects and music do a good job of matching the action and setting the mood.
Tales of Monkey Island harks back to the heyday of adventure gaming with a great story, engaging characters, and a lot of entertaining puzzles. Though the solutions generally aren't as tough as their predecessors were, you'll still feel a rewarding sense of satisfaction as you think your way through this game. Infrequent performance hitches and occasionally slow pacing are minor issues compared to the hours of humor, intrigue, romance, and insult swordfighting you get for the very reasonable price of $34.95. If you've got a hankering for adventure, then get your hands (or hooks) on Tales of Monkey Island.

Heir to the Throne Review

This third expansion finally completes Europa Universalis 3.

The Good

• Casus belli system gives wars character  
• Reforms and internal politics enrich the Holy Roman Emperor's life  
• Crushing pirates and enemy armies is no longer a chore  
• Dynastic succession will have you praying for an heir.

The Bad

• Requires base game and two previous expansions  
• Little player control over the siring and raising of heirs.

The "complete edition" of 2007's historical grand strategy epic Europa Universalis 3--bundled with its first two expansions--was released over a year ago. At that time, EU3 felt complete, with its hundreds of playable countries, diverse options for intrigue and diplomacy, and a plethora of religious and colonial conflicts appropriate for its 1399 to 1820 timeline. However, the complete edition proved premature because the third expansion Heir to the Throne has just been released. Despite its deceptively small size--barely more than 15 megabytes--Heir to the Throne greatly improves upon EU3 by adding a new casus belli system, making combat more fun, occupying monarchs with dynastic dramas, and revising the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire.

Step aside France, there's a new unseemly giant blob on the political map: the Holy Roman Empire.

Diplomacy receives the biggest overhaul in Heir to the Throne, with war justifications and peace treaties getting the bulk of the attention. In EU3, your regime's stability would suffer if you launched an unprovoked war, so concocting a just cause--or casus belli--for your ruthless wars of conquest was advisable. Unfortunately, each casus belli had the same effect on stability, and no distinction existed between, for instance, waging a holy war or reclaiming stolen land. Thankfully, Heir to the Throne features a dozen different casus belli each of which now has a significant effect on how you wage war and make peace. This lowers the war score needed to force your enemy to yield to your legitimate demands in a peace treaty, and it also determines the international respect or hostility you gain by victory. For example, the Reconquest casus belli lets you annex your claimed territories without accruing any infamy; Canceled Loan makes demanding monetary reparations easier; and Religious Unity doubles the prestige you get for forcing your enemy to convert. Just as in the original EU3, you can still devise your own peace treaty regardless of your casus belli, but unjustified demands can seriously alienate your neighbors.
Warmongers will be pleased to hear that combat has been significantly improved in Heir to the Throne. Previously, in EU3, you were forced to play extended games of whack-a-mole with retreating enemy armies as they bounced from province to province like a ping-pong ball--always routed by your army, but never, ever dying. In contrast, armies in Heir to the Throne immediately surrender when they run out of morale, and they must stand and fight for several days before retreating, which means that you'll have time to get in some good licks. Also improved are the battles against pirates, who are no longer able to retreat from battle. Additionally, pirates tend not to spawn in sea zones near your fleets, which makes combating piracy much more manageable and allows you to concentrate on more important things like ridding the world of heathen religions. The elimination of cartoonishly resilient armies and pirates was sorely needed, making warmongering more fruitful and enjoyable. Why wasn't EU3 always like this?
Another improvement to an existing game mechanic is the reenvisioning of the Holy Roman Empire. As the leader of this loose confederation of central European states, the holy roman emperor can now gain imperial authority, a type of political capital that he can use to improve relations with member states or to modernize the empire's institutions. You can now turn the empire into a hereditary monarchy or even unify it as a single state, which makes being the emperor fun and engrossing, unlike in the previous system, in which the title of emperor merely conveyed a few statistical modifiers rather than a sense of purpose.
Also gaining a new sense of purpose is the College of Cardinals, whose members have given up their lust for worldly things and are now incorruptible. This means that you can no longer bribe them to elect your puppet as pope. The pontiff may still become your toady, which gives you stat boosts and the ability to have your rivals excommunicated, but you can only accomplish this by amassing enough papal influence. This is granted based on your policies, and if your government is sufficiently intolerant of heretics and heathens, then you will be quite popular with the Holy See. Overall, the influence system is a welcome change from the laborious micromanagement of cardinal bribing, but cynics with a sizable disposable income may prefer the old ways.

The new dynastic mechanics plague you with all manner of civil wars and foreign interventions.

While foreign intrigues are an amusing diversion, monarchies must never forget their most important goal: the continuation of the dynasty. Monarchs now belong to dynasties that often rule over several countries at once, so if your monarch dies without an heir, you can be certain that a foreign cousin will pop up with a claim to the throne and an army ready to enforce it. However, having an heir does not guarantee peace and tranquility either, particularly if the heir is a bastard child from an unsanctioned union with a maid. For instance, a bastard king will likely see pretenders launch rebellions in an attempt to seize power, forcing you to divert your attention from bribing the holy roman emperor to suppress the insurgents. While monarchical dynasties are a great addition to EU3, they pale in comparison to the great dynastic dramas and family trees of Crusader Kings, an earlier Paradox game. Whereas in Crusader Kings, you could discreetly dispose of your barren, aging queen and marry a fertile young maiden to increase your chances of producing an heir, in Heir to the Throne, you don't get much of a say in the matter.
Also missing is the ability to influence your heir's characteristics through either genetics or upbringing, which would have been useful and fun. The worst part of dynastic gameplay occurs when the monarch dies but the heir is too young to rule. When that happens, your country will be run by a regency council until the heir comes of age, which could be up to 20 years away. Regency councils cannot start wars, so you may be unable to capitalize on all sorts of casus belli opportunities while patiently waiting for the heir to grow up.

Fallen Earth: Welcome to the Apocalypse Review

Clumsy combat, a glut of bugs, and ancient production values tarnish this otherwise rich and complex online role-playing game.

The Good

• Complex and enjoyable web of crafting and scavenging  
• Excellent quest writing  
• Beautiful understated soundtrack.

The Bad

• Loads of bugs, glitches, and other foibles  
• Combat is awkward and unrewarding  
• Weak visuals and sound effects.

Fallen Earth's vision of the future is a bleak one. Horrific mutants roam the desolate plains, violent splinter groups worship computer AIs, and you must rummage through bags and scavenge junkyards if you intend to survive. Unfortunately, the postapocalyptic setting isn't this ambitious massively multiplayer online game's only harsh attribute: An array of troubling bugs, a steep learning curve, and dated visuals make playing occasionally seem more of a chore than a pleasure. Technical flaws and missing MMOG-standard features are as much a part of Fallen Earth as its warring factions and mutated chickens, so if you're not the patient and forgiving type, you shouldn't make this your next virtual home. It's unfortunate that Fallen Earth's exterior is so troubled because underneath it dwells a complex economy and oft-brilliant quest writing that draw you in despite the blemishes. These diamonds are invaluable, but the laborious task of mining for them can be exhausting.

You can ride off into the sunset, but in the postapocalypse, there are no happy endings.

The game's setting is intriguing and unlike any other MMOG on the market. The American Southwest is the last known cradle of civilization after natural disasters and nuclear war devastate the planet, and it's here that you'll struggle against the mutated beasts and lawless brigands that threaten what's left of humanity. You and other players are clones--able to regenerate in a LifeNet pod after each death. After a brief tutorial that introduces you to combat and interface basics, you find yourself in the middle of a meager desert town with only the barest essentials to help you scrape by. And it will take you a long time before you feel like you're doing anything but scraping by. Fallen Earth is a harsh mistress. You spend your first hours trying to get your bearings, seeking help from your fellow players, and slowly determining how you are going to earn enough gambling chips (that is, money) to endure. It might take hours before you as much gain your first level or even find a way to buy a weapon or armor effective enough to protect you should you venture away from the cold comfort of your starting village.
You won't ever tame the dusty brown Arizona wastelands, but you will eventually become part of its ecology. Scavenging is important and inescapable, so as you make your way further into the desert, you'll find more and more resource nodes waiting to be plundered. You collect such minerals as coal, lead, and copper; forage for mushrooms, grain, and varied edibles; and stockpile scrap iron, glass, and rubber found in decrepit vehicles and mounds of rubbish. You can purchase necessary items as well, but it's more cost effective--and often necessary--to find it yourself. In turn, you can use these resources to craft essentially any usable object found in Fallen Earth. Depending on your proclivities, you can fashion shivs and lawnmower blades to use in melee combat; pistols and crossbows if you prefer to keep your enemies at a distance; armor of all sorts, from jackets to boots; and all kinds of auxiliary items, from ammo and acid to ATV engines and horse feed.

In time you'll long for more storage space.

If you enjoy the complicated economies of games like EVE and Pirates of the Burning Sea, Fallen Earth will scratch that same itch. Crafting is simple and painless: As long as you have the knowledge and items necessary, you can craft items anywhere (though the process is quicker in specific crafting labs). It takes some items minutes, hours, even days to complete, though like in EVE, crafting continues without further input once started--even if you are offline. Nor are you stuck with a particular discipline. As long as you obtain the book that teaches you the knowledge and level the crafting discipline high enough, you can make anything or everything. What you don't use, you can sell to a merchant or put up for auction, though because armor and weapons degrade over time, you may want to keep backups handy (though you can also mend those items with the right repair kit).
Like with crafting, you aren't forced into a single combat class. You can activate a template to help guide you toward a specific role, but there are no actual classes. You can mix and match to your heart's content, spending the advancements points you earn in any way you like. But whether you stick with pistols, rifles, or melee, you won't find Fallen Earth's combat very compelling. At least it strives for something different, eschewing the enemy auto-locking of other MMOGs and going for a pseudo real-time system that simulates a first- or third-person shooter. But whether you go for ranged combat or keep your foes close, combat is clumsy and lacks a sense of impact. When using melee weapons, battles are a mess of odd, jittery animations (particularly if you dual-wield) and flailing limbs made more awkward by weak sound effects. The imprecise targeting reticles of early ranged weapons like crossbows and zipguns make shooting equally inelegant. Better weapons lead to better combat later on, but even then, skirmishes are messy and unrewarding. Not even special abilities and mutations (Fallen Earth's version of magic) can energize the action; they don't look dramatic and, therefore, aren't that fun to use.

A rare glimpse of vivid color.

Combat isn't the source of all of Fallen Earth's shortcomings, though it does showcase some of the game's more bizarre behaviors. Enemies run toward you and position themselves in odd ways once combat is initiated rather than just run at you straight on, and they follow you for unusually long distances if giving you chase, even if they are many levels below you. If you defeat a human enemy, its rag doll might fly 20 feet into the air and flip cartwheels before landing. And these are among the less egregious technical and design flaws. At one point, we fell through the floor at a mission waypoint, which initiated an inescapable loop of falling and respawning; extricating ourselves required the assistance of a game master. (Similar requests are common in the in-game help channel.) Missions don't always update right away or may not update at all, and your active mission display will reset to another mission if you die or log out. Game performance takes a huge dive in populated areas; you'll see enemies and other players teleport around due to occasional but annoying lag spikes; and crashes, while less frequent than they were at the game's launch, are still common enough to be frustrating. There's just an unfortunate amount of technical clutter standing between you and your enjoyment.