Field Report: Tabula Rasa

Lord British is taking gamers into space in his new title Tabula Rasa. The title means "Clean Slate" in Latin, which is fitting as the game is just that... a fresh approach that feels invigorating and new. --

I wasn't honestly expecting much out of Tabula Rasa, and this really had nothing to do with the fact that it's been in development for ages. The game just seemed like a "bump in the road" sandwiched between World of Warcraft, and the next big MMO (Warhammer? Conan?) It surprises me say that I am very close to being hopelessly addicted to this refreshingly polished game. I wouldn't necessarily say that the genre needed this sort of kick in the pants exactly, but Tabula Rasa delivers it anyway.

There are a million little things that can make a game like this fail, but Tabula Rasa avoids most of those pitfalls and actually does quite a few things right.

1) Great Quest Design

From the moment you set foot in the world of Tabula Rasa you're bombarded by directed content. The newbie area (which takes the form of a battered fringe outpost holding off heavy waves of Bane invaders) starts off pretty slow, methodically teaching you the basics of movement, targeting, skill use, and culminates in a full-scale assault on a captured base with swarms of enemies attacking from all sides and AI squad members holding you down.

Things don't let up after you hit the first "real" zone. Your quest log is always brimming with tasks of varying levels of consequence, and the waypoint system makes it easy to find out where you have to go to further any given task, though it's sometimes hard to find an objective by relying on the markers alone, since the terrain in many areas is quite hilly.

The tasks themselves don't typically vary from the fare that's become standard in most MMOs, but the combat helps to keep things engaging despite the paint-by-numbers nature of most quests. I haven't yet broached the higher levels in the game, but I'm going to go forward on the assumption that the quests stay plentiful throughout.

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