It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Right...
So I decided to give this game a try seeing as it had been on my radar for awhile, and today was the day of the patch which supposedly turned it around and made it playable (also it was only 12$ on D2D). Unfortunately, the nicest thing about trying out Earthrise for the first time was that the price wasnt high enough to make me really regret buying it (though I could have bought a 6pack with that 12$ and would have enjoyed myself far more I think).
1) Graphics (7/10)
The graphics in Earthrise arent horrible, but they arent great either. I would say that they sit somewhere in the middle of the MMORPG road, caught between the nicer looking games (AoC/Aion/Rift/Global Agenda) and the rest. I thought the armor and weapons were pretty neat-looking for what I saw of them (some higher level players ran me around to introduce me to the game and showed me their gear), but it wasnt anything mindblowing that I hadnt either seen before, or seen done better...
2) Playability / Lag / Latency (7/10)
Ultimately, this game ran alright, though I just recently upgraded my PC (currently running an AMD Phenom Quadcore with 6 gigs of RAM and a brand new Nvidia 450GTS card), so it damned well better...
I had a little bit of stuttering and the loadtimes were pretty bad though, so while it was definitely playable latency-wise, it wasnt smooth (which speaks to the coding/design of the game, because ive run a couple games that were more intensive on this rig already and they ran better).
3) Originality / Fun (3/10)
This game looks neat, and the concept behind the ranged combat is kinda cool, but it is at the bottom of the pack where fun is concerned. Ive played alot of MMOs in my time (seeing as its been my hobby for over 10 years now) and right off the bat I recognized this one for one that is very sparse on actual content (perhaps to be expected to some degree because it is described as a sandbox, though I saw very few sandboxy elements in the few hours I played... maybe they are more prevalent in the endgame, I dunno).
4) UI Friendliness / Overall Design / Controls (3/10)
This dosent get a zero, because sad to say, ive seen worse... but the UI and controls for this game are among some of the least-clean that ive ever experienced. Movement feels stilted and slow, and when you jump, you barely clear the ground. The animations are also very poorly concieved, and the targetting system is not very intuitive.
I dunno, I feel like I can stop here with this review and just give you guys a summary... Going any further seems like an exercise in futility.
All I really have to say about Earthrise is that, if this miracle patch that went through today apparently saved the game from its previous state and made it awesome compared to what it was, I would have never in a million years wanted to play the pre-patch version. This game is uninspired and poorly executed, and while the actual concept behind it (post apocalyptic sci fi is always cool as a concept) and some of the art in the game (cant help but say that the modeling wasnt total crap, and the guns looked cool, as did the armor) has some merit, everything else in the few hours I played left a horrible taste in my mouth that pretty much cancelled out any positives there were.
Now im sure a few people will say "But Jonsus, you didnt even give it a chance! A few hours is nowhere near enough to really understand a game!" To those people I nod politely and say that yes, in many cases one should play a bit longer to see if things work out and the game grows on you, but Earthrise felt awkward and horrible from the getgo, and 90% of why is the clunky interfacing and movement. You literally feel like youre swimming through molasses when you try to move around the gameworld, and targetting is a major pain. To put it bluntly, I saw all I needed to see, and I dont think the game had a ton to offer beyond it.
TLDR: Game is not good. Save your money for beer. There is far better out there.
Comments
Thanks for the writeup. However, pretty much everything you said is extremley vague and not very informative for a prospective player, and honestly sounds more like you just wanted to get a token "review" out of your system and call it an evening. But then again, your vagueness makes sense, because you really didn't get into the game at all (an hour or two played?) nor do you understand much about it, so I suppose you really wouldn't have much to say. In any case, I think it would be more fair if you changed the title of your thread to "New Player First Impressions - July 2011." Again though, thanks for your effort and perhaps you'll take a look at the game down the road one day.
Review or Impression is totally nitpicking. A new player get his first impressions for his first review within the first two or three hours.
He's pretty spot on actually. This game lacks fun gameplay and content throughout the whole content and territorial warfare won't change this game for the better sadly.
Its funny, I did a review on this in Closed Beta ( 2 Days before Early Access) and was bashed for saying its terrible. It seems as though people think unpolished games are alright in the MMO industry. Honestly a unfinished game is a unfinished game and this game could have been developed better by a bunch of highschool programmers because atleast they would have taken there time with it and made it good. This games garbage... and its pretty much off the radar as far as im concerned.
I find it ironic that you keep goin on about how vague I am... but do not define what about my post was vague. Hello pot? Meet kettle. I hear you have something in common about your coloring... I even thought I was fairly clear on the different points I covered, though perhaps I could have gone a bit deeper so as to tell you more about Earthrise... But honestly, my review was cut a bit short because really the only thing I should have posted was a big "KEEP AWAY ALL YE NEW PLAYERS, THIS GAME IS NO GOOD" sign.
I didnt see the point in continuing, which is why I summed it up nicely at the end.
lol. First impressions of a game that one just purchased yesterday for $12 and played for a bit as opposed to purchasing a 6-pack of beer and drinking it last night. I think the end-result of accomplishing either can resulted in the same; impaired or inadequate judgment.
Yes, you might have a point there, but if you aswell listen to those, who are telling the same thing for a very long time, then his short impression/review only adds to that.
I'm playing Earthrise for allmost a year, if we count early beta stages. I've said it back then, and I do say it now: the game is nowhere in a state of being enjoyable.
The main-reason is a clunky UI, horrible combat-system (either you do TAB-lock or you do mouse-aim but not that crappy mouse-over-stuff that doesn't work really well, especially with the laughable tiny hitboxes). The second reason why Earthrise is bad is, that it's nothing but a gankfest. No "safer" areas to do some PvE-grind are the totally wrong decision and the reason why Darkfall and MO fails aswell. Look at EvE or DAoC of how to do it better.
The final nail in the coffin is the unbelievable grind and the crafting-system tied to farming mobs leading to even more grinding. Again. Look at EvE or SWG how to do this way better.
Masthead didn't listen to the testers and the proposals made in the forums early on, and now we see the result. Another game that won't even take off before it crashes.
I remeber my first few hours in darkfall. was a nightmare, mostly from controls/movement/ui. I nearly rage quit. A day or two later ( i mean i did pay for 30 days so i decided to get some moneys worth out of it) i got use to it somewhat. I learned to rebind keys. About a year later i looked back to my first few hours, and almost deleting the game then and there and giving up and thought...man i would have missed out. Wasnt the best game ever but definately worth the time i spent in it.
What does this have to do with earthrise?
Well...i was told to come back in april, then may, then june...its nearly august. I respect the review given, however i see 7/10 rating on lag/preformance....that use to be a major issue...i assume its fixed somewhat.
Content, well, sandbox you make your own
To be honest most of the OP's negatives seem overcomeable..
Really if your biggest issue was animations, controls and UI...im thinking this game might not be so bad.
Are there any other reviews that can describe if the controls are changable, as well as the ui?
I honestly dont want to download it and get into a new game at this moment, however im definately much more interesting in the game now, seeing that the largest issue fresh into the game is ui/crontrols. But the game does sound about 90% more appealing than last time i checked in here. And the gankfest that one poster describes as a negative is a positive for me, you start to miss that thrill of your pixles dying at any moment.
So... what improvements since the OP's post? Id like a more recent update if you could, possibly more in dephth on the movement/controls/ui
And are the animations and sound really that bad?
About how many hours of direct gameplay does it take to start to get into the meat of tha game? Is it like darkfall where it will be weeks of gameplay before im able to really do anything...and then months before i can compete with a decent % of the population?
Mabey gear your review towards someone who was abel to overcome and enjoy the crappy DF controls enjoyed the open "no content" sandbox (does it at least have some sand unlike DF?) enjoyed the gankfest...
MHS is the worst developer ever. Each time they tried to fix pieces of the game, they would ruin it 10fold. Stay away ....
*for the books, Darkfall is actually a great game now...even noobs can catch up and get involved.
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"