PC impressions: Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi themed MMO from NCsoft. Among its arsenal of features are: party-based voice chat, instances and open battlegrounds, a range of weaponry and an interesting cloning system. The class system is branching, and players can clone their character at any time -- change your mind about a class, and you can just dust off the clone and try again, rather than re-roll at level one.
Playing the game, it comes across as the crazy lovechild of a MMORPG and MMOFPS. Combat is fast-paced and loud, with a big focus on guns and special abilities. Aiming isn't the FPS-style twitch-based shooting, though, and players progress through levels and missions much like in other MMOs. Being able to zoom into first-person view makes Tabula Rasa play almost like a straight-up FPS at times, but without the response and accuracy that FPS games are used to.
The MMO aspect is solid, with a lot of PvE gameplay and consensual PvP. Explore zones and you unlock waypoints that let you cover the same ground again without staring at your avatar's back for half an hour. Defeat bosses and work around the NPC AI to complete missions and gain rewards. At times it seems like the FPS and MMO aspects are working against each other -- death in FPS games often means instant respawn, but death here means a trip to the city hospital.
Tabula Rasa will feature an episodic distribution model -- once the game is released, expansions will add new planets, and gameplay additions such as vehicles and classes. However, micropayments aren't on the map just yet.
