Fire Fall is the first game from developers Red 5 Studios, this game has been around for 3 years now, and finally starting to take shape, but with the most recent beta it’s clear that the game is still a little rough around the edges, but does that mean the game isn’t worth your time?
Based in the future, after the devastating Crystite wars, a failed space jump from a space battle ship, causes it to nose dive into the earth, causing worldwide damage, and also causes a terrible enemy to come to earth, The Melding, which also shrouds parts of the earth from humanity, causing them to come together, but it also invents the Repulsor Technology which is man kinds way of fighting back against them, the world is now in total turmoil and you the player have to…well right now, there isn’t much to do but be part of the world, this game is very much in beta, whilst the world is very alive with missions happening constantly and randomly throughout the world which can range from helping to fix a bike, to full on war against an invading army via drop ship, all you can really do right now, apart from mining. With that being said, like many MMO’s that are being released, this game tries to change what we have gotten used to and expect from new games.
From the start you have the choice of 5 different Battle frames (Classes) the heavy hitting dreadnought, the turret building Engineer , the long ranged Recon, the ever healing biotech and the all-rounder, Assault, this is where one of the first changes in this game comes to shine, I am also very pensive about what class I choose in games, most RPG’s I spend a few hours to choose my first class to play, and I thought this was the case here, until within the first 10 minutes of the tutorial I am told later in the game I can buy another class to play as and switch freely? Well that takes a lot of time off my usual start of the game trying to find a class I like…or so I thought, whilst I was enjoying this massive difference, I also found my first bug in this game. Whilst being taught how to spend money or Crystite, I came to a massive problem, in which the game did not allow me to buy the item needed and wouldn’t let me continue the tutorial, 3 restarts later and I can finally continue through to the next area, until once again I am stuck at a new part of the tutorial, one which I have been stuck at since, though thankfully I can the tutorial is more a guideline of what to do at this point in time which means I was allowed to continue around the game unhindered. Apart from this, it I am glad to see that it is one of the few bugs found in this game so far, the only other worth noting is that, when you kill an enemy you get thrown into the air 30 feet, though sometimes annoying, and with no reason for it, at some points this sudden raise in altitude saved me in many fire fights.
The next big change to gameplay, is how you use XP, each kill gains you some XP, save up enough and you can spend it on new weapons skills and gear, no levels and no linier levelling or skill tree’s each suit you have has 3 branches of the tree, but you can go into each as much or little as you need too until you reach the end where you can unlock different suits though the tree doesn’t progress very far in the current build and most weapons are looking identical, an interesting take on a levelling system.
At the moment the crafting also is taking a back seat for mostly the only things you can craft are your usual consumables such as med kits and ammo packs, but you can also create new “Thumpers” which are the mining units in this game, along with the Shock Hammer this part of the game is where you will spend most of your time, searching for ore with the hammer and calling down your mining drop pod, it will then start to mine and draw wildlife from around you to start attacking you and the thumper until either the pod is destroyed or you send it back up, a bonus in this game is that you only need one Thumper as long as it gets sent back up in one piece you can reuse it again and again, there are only three levels of thumper each having a larger bay for ore and brings more and much stronger enemies to defend against, apart from the odd surface ore you need a shock charge for, and the small amount dropped from fallen enemies this will produce the bulk of your ore in this game, though the amount you will need at the moment , in this games current state will lead you thinking that mining will be a waste of time, but the XP it will also bring in is very attractive.
The graphics in the game look good, but not something to write home about, this is where most people will draw their conclusion and will start comparing the game to borderlands, but for those of you who hated borderlands or loved it, do not take this comparison on face value, this is a game that is very rough right now, not in a state that will keep you playing for longer than a week, with friends it makes this much more enjoyable than alone, but hopefully the developers will be bringing a lot of content which will make this game one to watch over the next year and its free to play price tag will make this game very attractive, and will hopefully bring in a massive player base.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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