Entering into The Secret World takes you to a world your crazy uncle Tom always thought was a reality. The Illuminati is not only a real organization, but they continue to strive toward a New World Order by working behind the scenes and out of sight. In the secret world of The Secret World, the Illuminati also has to deal with equal super powers: The Dragon, an operation that molds its power through chaos and unpredictable action, and the Templars, an ancient organization dedicated to the destruction of evil wherever it rear its ugly head.
If you were to only play, say, the first ten minutes of The Secret World, you might leave the game feeling rather disappointed. Character creation lacks choice, and your character’s introduction to his new found powers goes down the path of a very long and boring cutscene filled with drawn out exposition by what is hopefully a placeholder voice actress. Luckily, this is the low point of the game and the cutscenes and voice actings only get much better from this point.
The world of The Secret World is dark, without a doubt. The locations you travel through are beautifully detailed and permeate with an overwhelming emotion of dread, hopelessness, and the imminent darkness that waits around every corner. The world is coming to an end, and you are one of a select few who are even aware of it. The town of Kingsmouth offers plenty of nods to your favorite fiction stories, from Lovecraft to a possible nod toward Left 4 Dead with the vehicles (jump on a vehicle and the alarm goes off, calling in zombies).
The tutorial is a high time to leave your ego at the door. You are not the hero that The Secret World deserves, and the game makes no qualms about telling you right up, “you are not the only one, and you are not the chosen one.” The tutorial gives you a chance to try out and select a desired weapon from the list. Your choices are between melee (sword, brass knuckles, sledgehammer), guns (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle), and magic (elemental, blood, and chaos). Personally, I chose the sledgehammer. They don’t call me Sledgehammer Omali for nothing. In fact, they don’t call me that at all.
Combat in The Secret World is familiar and fast, somewhere around the lines of Age of Conan without the directional attack/block mechanics. You have attacks that build energy and attacks that deplete energy. With my sledgehammer, special attacks were mainly focused toward hitting multiple targets. Magic and guns were not radically different to melee, albeit at a longer attack range.
Leveling can be an overwhelming experience, especially when you first lay eyes on the skill wheel presented to you. The Secret World offers the ability to create the character you want to play, and if you don’t know what character you want to play, this can come off as almost too much freedom. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about accidentally gimping your character by spreading his abilities out too far, later on you have the ability to build decks of skill combinations and change them on the fly.
I hesitate to talk about performance with The Secret World, although the beta worked just fine with a few hiccups here and there that likely had more to do with running capture software at the same time I was playing. From the limited area that I saw in the Templar beta, The Secret World is coming along great. The map of Kingsmouth is huge, with quests and collectibles scattered around to encourage exploring every nook and cranny of this dark future.
With some luck, I will be able to provide more beta coverage of the other factions in the near future. For now, I had a lot of fun playing The Secret World and can’t wait until the game launches later this year.
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