The Secret World PC reviews

The Secret World is great. It's got a lot of traditional MMO elements, but has a plot with good voice acting that can draw you in. It's atmospheric and fun to play.

Recently dropped it's subscription, although you can still pay for added in-game bonuses. Staying without paying doesn't detract from playing though, so it's all good.

Buy it, play it, enjoy it.

An interesting world, and interesting quests. The character development is intricate, and allows you to play all roles without having to re-roll. My only gripes come from the game engine, its simple not the best one to be using for a mmo and results in some bugs and random lagg

Yes, there are a lot of them. The game starts in Maine, in HP Lovecraft's Maine because there is a strong undertone of evil magic at work, of horrors from the ocean and some of them you will have to contend with. The game later moves on to other areas – Egypt, Transylvania.

There are three secret societies in the game that you can join (have to join one actually, as you start your first toon) – The Illuminati, kind of the technologic Underground with a corporate feel to it, the Templars, with the “fight against evil demons” theme predominant and the Dragon, somewhat Eastern flavoured, kind of anarchistic and rather inscrutable as to what their real goals are.

The graphics of this game are gorgeous. Really, really well done. Alas, I've had problems with the DirectX 11 version of it crashing my video driver repeatedly, but the DirectX 9 version works just fine. My Geforce 570 video card sure gets a workout and all the fans in the computer start spinning up like crazy after a while as both GPU and CPU are heating up to near boiling point. The voice acting of some of the NPC characters is just .. Astonishing. Hysterically funny in some cases … I've heard a fellow player actually state that he peed himself laughing at the NPC characters video clips in the Innismouth Academy. However, that stuff is probably only funny to people who have actually been to a university. Regardless … Great stuff.

Gameplay .. Two aspects I'm going to comment on. There are some 500+ abilities in this game; as you advance in experience playing and solving quests you can acquire these, all and any of them. It's going to take you a while – the starter abilities cost 1 AP (ability point) but some of the higher level ones cost 50AP. Three realms each of magic, ranged combat and melee combat are separated in several sub-branches each. Finding abilities that supplement and reinforce each other is not easy for the raw beginner in this game. Starting up a search engine and looking for TSW decks (sets of abilities to choose and equip) will help here. That leads directly to the second aspect of gameplay – similar to Guildwars you only have a limited number of abilities equipped at any one time – 7 active and 7 passive abilities. You can equip two weapons simultaneously (no penalty, in fact you are seriously disadvantaged with only one) and the active abilities have to relate to these. You can change equipment and abilities at your leasure – except of course not in combat because that would get you killed really fast. However, this is kind of limiting, very very limiting if you're used to a game like Funcom's previous game Anarchy Online where you could have dozens of pertinent skills on your toolbars all at once. Surviving combat is often hard considering what's available to you by the time you enter a certain area. You need to team up – but I've found the TSW society for new players to be not very social, to be not overly helpful. So the game can get frustrating while you're starting out.

I'm not sure why you guys are comparing two very different games with each other…- Guildwars 1 was released a long time ago.. And you comparing it with a game that's coming out in 2012..

End point, people who enjoy games along the lines of Saint Row (ish) will take pleasure in the game..

Don't compare it to big league games please.

Seriously – the worst MMORPG I ever play..

The story and combat are fine, but move to trading, mail or crafting it is fill of bugs.

Sick of generic fantasy MMOs, running around with your magical elf- How does dual-wielding pistols inbetween your hammer swings sound-

The Secret World offers next to unlimited character development, as every character can handle every weapon, learn every skill and fit any role they choose, and switch between them at a moments notice.

With hundreds and hundreds of skills spread over 9 types of weapons (split into Ranged: Assault Rifle, Pistols and Shotgun; Melee: Swords, Hammers and Fist Weapons; and Magic: Blood, Elemental and Chaos), creating a deck of 7 Active abilities and 7 Passive skills sounds daunting, but I've found people tend to be very helpful in giving advice. The pre-built decks offer a good starting point as well.

The game is set in present day, real world, with some poetic license taken. After a devastating event in Tokyo leaves you with what can best be described as magical powers, you're recruited by one of three factions: the Templars, with a “destroy evil, no matter the cost” philosophy; the Illuminati, who desire power and control, and the inscrutable Dragon, who monitor chaos and pull strings from the shadows. As you complete missions around the world for your faction, you grow in strength as you begin to understand and finetune your powers more.

The game is Free to Play after purchase; but there is an Item Store, with additional mission packs and content issues only available through purchase there. The latest Issues are priced at around about $10US each.

The game also has a moddable UI, with a number of keen modders making every piece of the original game a little bit easier, or adding functionality.

The only two drawbacks to the game is the very high system requirements to run smoothly on high settings, and a LOT of disk space needed for the game files. My installation clocks in at 41GB.

Great game worth a try for any one who likes mmos