First Impressions: Fallen Earth
by Krystalle Voecks 
Sep 2nd 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, Fallen Earth, Game mechanics, New titles, Previews, Opinion, First Impressions
Welcome back my friends, for some games that never end. With most of the craziness of the summer travel season and an injury behind me, it's time to dig in and get back to First Impressions. This time we're taking a look at the crunchy, post-apocalyptic indie title, Fallen Earth. Set to launch on the 15th, with a pre-launch start on the 9th, Fallen Earth is the first entry into the market for Fallen Earth, LLC, a spin-off of Icarus Studios. To say that it is an ambitious step into the field is an understatement of some pretty extreme proportions. It's not every day an MMO company decides to drop an MMO smack into the middle of a scale map of the Grand Canyon. More properly, a post Shiva-virus and nuclear post-apocalyptic Grand Canyon. Ambitious? Definitely. Whether or not it works, well... read on for my First Impressions, and make your own call once you have more of an idea what's in play here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tom said on 8:48PM 9-02-2009
Is the "Welcome to the Apocalypse" link supposed to take you to the photo gallery -- or is there a review here somewheres? ;)
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Tom said on 8:50PM 9-02-2009
Ooops. Never mind. I think I have it figured out now...
Krystalle Voecks said on 8:53PM 9-02-2009
Well, we don't do reviews here. MMOs are difficult to review, short of investing hundreds of hours, and opinions are like... well, you know the axiom. I like to think of it as an "overview" as opposed to a "review." The idea is to give you enough information so you can make your own call.
That said, if you check the gallery text on the right hand side (or under the picture if you go full-size on the images) that should give you the story.
Tom said on 9:17PM 9-02-2009
Yah, I didn't realize at first it was a photo essay/first impression kind of thing. It was very well done. Thanks for posting it.
Jarin said on 9:56PM 9-02-2009
Very interesting article. You've convinced me to give Fallen Earth a try when it's released :)
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TheNilvarg said on 10:04PM 9-02-2009
I couldn't tolerate the horrible animations and glitchy hitboxes long enough to do any real beta testing in this game. Mediocre at best.
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Krystalle Voecks said on 10:27PM 9-02-2009
Just out of curiosity, when did you play? A few months ago I was having similar problems with mob targeting and weird animation/mob glitches. That said, I was running the game cranked all the way up this last week and only had the occasional problem with mobs skidding across the landscape or a slight bit of chop in towns where everyone was running around.
The only other bugs I saw outside of that were the ones I covered about the friends list/positioning on the maps. I've seen the occasional mob skids in lots of currently released MMOs, so I'm not too bent about seeing that in the Fallen Earth beta. The friends-list thing definitely needs some love though, unless the intent is to make it an MMOSPG.
Also, for anyone interested in a comparison, my system stats are as follows:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.81 GHz) dual-core processor, 2 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 mb). The rest of the stats are pretty unremarkable: on-board sound, basic ATX mobo, cable modem, etc. Self-built, not o/c'd.
Mr Angry said on 11:27PM 9-02-2009
This looks almost identical to SWG to me hehehe!
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Krystalle Voecks said on 1:57AM 9-03-2009
There are definitely moments of SWG to it. There's a bit of TR and EVE in there too. Even still, it manages to feel like its own thing, which is nice.
BrennanK said on 1:05AM 9-03-2009
I hadn't ever taken the time to really look into this game in any great detail. This article has definitely put it on my radar. It looks like it could be a lot of fun if approached from the right perspective. I'm always on the lookout for a "different" approach to mmo design. Great article!
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Venekor said on 4:43AM 9-03-2009
Nasty character models
Nasty animations
Poor PVP
Vehicles have like no physics, they feel stuck to the ground
No seamless Player housing and player cities
2002 graphics
I hate it because I want the next SWG Pre CU but they all seem to be made by developers with a low budget and frigging I can't stand the ugliness of them.
I just hope the next Blizzard game unlike anything else is some crazy sandbox game.
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Vandell said on 5:36AM 9-03-2009
Not a fan of this style of impressions.. Very annoying to read, all I want is a nice big honkin' article, at most, rather than two paragraphs and then loading another page.. Was really lookin' forward to reading this.
FYI, this is especially difficult to read on my iPhone.
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Jarin said on 10:27AM 9-03-2009
FYI, 90% of web developers really couldn't give a hoot about your iPhone. The capability is there, and that's good enough for them. As a web developer myself, I tend to agree.
Vandell said on 11:20PM 9-03-2009
Even using my computer this article is still a pain in the ass to read.
Draccan said on 7:11AM 9-03-2009
I have to agree it took a while to find the article and not very good for iphones (I am often using my iphone on massively.com but not right now).
For the game, I agree with VENEKOR - this game has dated graphics. Looks worse than the first Rainbow Six (which I still play to this day together with the later Raven Shield).
Too bad we can't have these game concepts on Funcom's updated dreamfall engine.
I wish the game well. I might check it out some time on a slow day, but while gameplay is king for me, I do love graphics too.
Hopefully a larger developer will see what Fallen Earth and Darkfall is doing and put it in a better, smoother package.
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DrunkenPandaren said on 5:48PM 9-04-2009
I'm pretty sure you're blind.
Yakboy said on 8:38AM 9-03-2009
This smells like Anarchy Online. Personally I see nothing new of value here that hasn't been done before. I wouldn't wast my time with it. Wait for Aion or better yet grow a pair and play Darkfall.
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rheric said on 9:48AM 9-03-2009
Interesting article. I'd played quite a bit in earlier beta, but stopped for other pursuits. I was also put off by the graphics, but figured it was an early build and hoped they'd clean and polish it before release.
Looks like they have, to some degree. Worth checking out, which I will definitely do.
If you're on the fence, don't let Venekor and Yakboy scare you off - definitely take a look. There are some truly good gameplay mechanics at work; maybe not revolutionary, but Fallen Earth is moving in the right direction. It doesn't look nearly as bad as they make it out, and besides, how much are Age of Conan graphics worth when the game itself is hardly worth the investment of time and money? Pretty doesn't necessarily equal good.
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Venekor said on 9:57AM 9-03-2009
Yeh but you need both cause if you don't like the look of the game then why would you care about exploration or your character? I loved Star Wars Galaxies for the gameplay but I wouldn't have stuck with it anywhere near as long as I did if I didn't enjoy the art and setting. For me I love the Post apoc setting but Fallen Earths graphics are just so poor it puts me off. Why waste my time with a game I'm not 100% happy with when I could do something else?
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beckygrrl said on 11:09AM 9-03-2009
I was in the FE beta for just over a month. Before that I'd spent 8 months in EQ and a year in EvE. FE is far from perfect (plenty of bugs still to squash), but I've seen major improvements just in the time I've been paying attention.
I strongly suspect that in time FE will find its own unique niche among MMO gamers and do quite well within it, much as EvE has.
Personally, I had a great time during beta and so I preordered. How long I'll continue with the game will depend in large part on how it develops post-launch. Right now, I could see myself spending a lot of time with it in the future but we'll see.
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