Lots happened this week, non of it I wish to talk about though. I'm sure Reese is going to talk about the Orange Box's release and I spent all last night sucking at Team Fortress 2. I also started Tabula Rasa to get in the beta testing experience. Reminds me a lot of the too short lived Auto Assault (which I spoken of before), but without the cars, other then that I have little opinion on it at the moment.
I did indeed purchase the Orange Box yesterday and got a little bit of playtime in on Portal, but nothing else. Portal rocks, not much else to say about it at the moment. I do find it interesting that even though Team Fortress 2 is one of the major reasons I purchased the Orange Box, I still go straight for the puzzle solving game (well, I also really like the concept of Portal).
I also am in the Tabula Rasa beta. I think the main draw of the game for me is the fact that combat in it is stat based but also depends heavily on your strategy. I also like the fact that every character can choose which skills to take (relevant to their class) or not to take as they progress. This really lets you customize your characters a lot. I also really enjoy the speed of the combat and the way it dynamically changes. For example:
I would start a fight against three or four guys simply by running up while firing my rifle. As I get closer, I may stop to cast my lightning Logos ability then continue to run up. When in range, I would switch to the shotgun to hit all the guys at once and then melee them or cast the shrapnel Logos to hit them all, depending on their health and how many are still alive.
So to recap that, I used two different weapons (rifle, shotgun), one of which is a cone attack and not affected by movement. I also used two different Logos abilities (basically, magic attacks) and also got to melee them to help finish them off. This strategy changes drastically depending on the enemy and numbers of them. I don't know, I guess I just don't feel to pigeonholed by the class role I take, I still can do a bit of anything and approach the fights as I see fit.
Wow, that was a lot more than I originally intended to write. To sum up, I would recommend checking out Tabula Rasa if you think any of that sounded good and then again, even if you didn't read it all, check out the game.
I also am in the Tabula Rasa beta. I think the main draw of the game for me is the fact that combat in it is stat based but also depends heavily on your strategy. I also like the fact that every character can choose which skills to take (relevant to their class) or not to take as they progress. This really lets you customize your characters a lot. I also really enjoy the speed of the combat and the way it dynamically changes. For example:
I would start a fight against three or four guys simply by running up while firing my rifle. As I get closer, I may stop to cast my lightning Logos ability then continue to run up. When in range, I would switch to the shotgun to hit all the guys at once and then melee them or cast the shrapnel Logos to hit them all, depending on their health and how many are still alive.
So to recap that, I used two different weapons (rifle, shotgun), one of which is a cone attack and not affected by movement. I also used two different Logos abilities (basically, magic attacks) and also got to melee them to help finish them off. This strategy changes drastically depending on the enemy and numbers of them. I don't know, I guess I just don't feel to pigeonholed by the class role I take, I still can do a bit of anything and approach the fights as I see fit.
Wow, that was a lot more than I originally intended to write. To sum up, I would recommend checking out Tabula Rasa if you think any of that sounded good and then again, even if you didn't read it all, check out the game.