During last week's Game Developer's Conference, our team had the opportunity to learn a lot more about Funcom's The Secret World. In the first of our two previews of TSW, we give our readers an overview of the game and our thoughts about it. Read on!

My initial impressions of The Secret World are of a love child between the Dresden Files, Left 4 Dead, and maybe some Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Alan Wake thrown in there for good measure.  Funcom's MMORPG has a fun, refreshing modern world with a clean, minimalist user interface and cinematic story dialogue sequences.  It also has a dark and cryptic feel to it, with great lighting effects and some scripted survival/horror type events in the Templar area that I got to play with.  Fighting monsters in TSW feels pretty comfortably like MMO combat, but a little more action-oriented with the ability to run-and-gun, and I liked that my NPC party members were chatting away through combat, providing a context and tone for what we were up against.  The demo build that I played looked polished and ran well, with a few framerate issues and rough edges here and there.

Read more of Som Pourfarzaneh's The Secret World: GDC 2012 Preview.

Nice write up. I am really excited to try this game. 

Interesting gaming ideas.Funcom however has lost my trust.After the debacles of ANARCHY and AOC....I simply wont touch one of their products  till many months AFTER launch...if ever.

I think gameplay videos are better than write-ups - then you can get a real feel for the game.

I´m impressed!

me likey

I think TSW looks really god. I enjoyed the video, nice to see some actual gameplay. :)

This game really looks good. I love the concepts, the settings, the mechanics. At least according to what's been released.

But I will wait for a while on this one. I need to know that they aren't going to pull the same crap in this game's Cash Shop that they pulled in Anarchy Online's Cash Shop.

good graphics at least.

Originally posted by Riptose

The combat didn't really impress me at all.... Non of the zombies (just before the boss fight) even moved..... They wales up pulled 2-3 of them and the rest stood there. Rinse and repeat. Not much fun there.

 

The "fun"is dictated by the dificulty of the mob.  as the voice explained it was a Wave thing, so first 1, then 2, then 4 then the remaining 8 ..then the boss. 

but eh 5 sec of video sure can show you the lack of fun in a game eh. 

/shrug ..

Pay to paly?No thanks

Will be there day one, bugs and all. Looking forward to the game.

The only MMORPG im looking forward to this year even if themepark type games aint my thing.. i just love the setting..

Cant wait.

Originally posted by reignjuste

Pay to paly?No thanks

Thats how MMORPGs should be..

Originally posted by HurricanePip
Looks cool, but I still remember the AoC launch ... taking a wait and see on this. Given the recent mmorpg.com articles, I'm glad I took a wait and see approach with TOR too.

I don't if I want less content that's more polished and less buggy, but something's gotta give with MMO launches. Half finished games and broken content just doesn't cut it anymore.

People have been saying this for years too. And yet, it continues.

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Originally posted by Sevenwind
Will be there day one, bugs and all. Looking forward to the game.

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same here

I'm really starting to worry about the close proximity of THIS game's release to GW2.  I have to buy 2 to 3 copies of games when the family is playing and they've expressed interest in both these games.  This makes me a little....I don't know....sad.  I don't want to miss either game, but if I am forced to choose due to close release dates....it will be GW2 for me.

This summer is going to be awesome.  I may age 10 years due to lack of sleep however.