Tabula Rasa Previews
-
Category: News ArchiveHits: 572
Stepping into the futuristic world of Tabula for the first time is a chaotic experience. Dropships swoop down from overhead, gracefully and logically inserting enemy and friendly soldiers onto the battlefield. It's not often that a spawn makes this much sense in the context of its world. Rocket launchers and laser chainguns sent ordnance screaming through the air as I took cover behind a grouping of sandbags. Strategically placed embankments offer real protection from incoming fire--although in a lot of cases your character looks rather silly taking cover and shooting through a wall while crouched in a defensive position. However, polygonal clipping doesn't stop your avatar from locking onto enemies and shooting away, which feels more satisfying than any RPG combat in recent memory. This is still an RPG though, and while you can pop shots off in FPS fashion, you're essentially casting the "bullet" spell, eroding enemy health bars with familiar damage-over-time mathematics. While you aim from a third person perspective in Gears of War fashion, targets are locked with a "sticky targeting" system, reducing carefully placed headshots to more generic attacks.
And a snippet from Games Radar's preview focusing on classes:
The Exobiologist specializes in alien biology, and uses knowledge of anatomy coupled with the power of Logos to great effect. This class creates biological pets that other players can use. Additionally, the Exobiologist can gain some degree of mind control over creatures to calm them down or turn them against each other. Advanced knowledge of biochemistry lends itself to particularly deadly Logos-based attacks.
