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Tabula Rasa Preview

Hands-on With the Tabula Rasa Beta
The Bane, a hostile alien race, has arrived on Earth and scattered humans across the galaxy in an ongoing fight for survival. Thats the premise behind Tabula Rasa, a new sci-fi MMORPG from Destination Games, a company founded by Richard Garriott and Starr Long, famous for their work on titles in the Ultima franchise. It isnt simply the lack of elves that makes this game different, theyve rethought RPG combat mechanics from the ground up.

Part Shooter, Mostly Roleplaying Game
Tabula Rasa is definitely an RPG, but the interface borrows a great deal from first-person shooters. While targets are selected with sticky crosshairs, the outcome of an exchange is determined by a mysterious combination of odds, statistics, movement, cover, and aim. You dont need really high accuracy, but it can help. Auto-attack is out and firing with the mouse buttons is in. You have a primary and a secondary attack, each of which can be switched quickly with shortcut keys. In some ways it resembles the hybrid system used by Star Wars Galaxies in its current incarnation.

Targetting with crosshairs does get your attention back on the action and its easy to adjust to. Id like to have a way to zoom completely into a first-person perspective, preferably with the mouse wheel, rather than always having the camera floating over the shoulder of my character. Its cool that they included a crouch function, but you stand up as soon as you move, which just doesnt feel right. Of course, these are small things that may change at any time.

Running and gunning is a big part of the fun in Tabula Rasa. Although there are skills that require you to stand still, combat is fast and furious compared to what the bulk of MMORPGs offer. Arming a shotgun and getting in close to a group of Bane, knocking them back with the force of your blasts, is a lot more intense than I expected. Im not sure what they have planned, but I could see something like player-controlled vehicles pushing it over the top. For a mix of RPG and FPS, its the most well thought-out effort Ive seen yet, even at the beta stage.

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