The Secret World: First Week

It has been a great few days for The Secret World. The launch has gone very smooth, and the reviews by the gaming press are very positive. Twitter #TSW, has been bouncing with excited players enjoying the game.

I have managed to get in a few 3 hour play sessions and I am coming to the end of Kingsmouth. My character Jeniveve, a dragon initiate, is using an element/blade build. Because I have enjoyed the past few days so much it is quite hard to capture it all in a blog post. So I’ll just cover my favourite point up to now.

Polaris

The Polaris is a beached cargo ship. Its containers litter the shore like massive metal slabs. Shambling around the structures are Draug, think zombie and Invasion of the Body Snatchers rolled into one.  The player’s purpose is to explore and uncover the secrets around the metal carcass.

The dungeon holds true to Funcom’s design view, to minimize trash, and instead provide interesting boss fights. Each fight teaches you something about the end boss encounter and the whole dungeon feels real and natural. Well a far as plant like sea zombies can.

The last boss fight caught my imagination the most.  Not to give too much of the story away the players find themselves in a rocky enclosure. Knee deep water with monolithic stone structures dotted around the pool and at the centre a massive Cthulhu like dragon.

I have seen my far share of end dungeon encounters and this is one of the few, were I actually felt a little frightened. The beast goes into a trance like state in parts of the fight, and fog descends limiting your view distance. Its eyes glow and if you don’t hide from its gaze you will quickly die. So that is what the group has to do, use the pillars around the pool to hide from the monster as it lumbers around the location the whole scene feels eerie. You can hear the watery clump of its massive claws and occasionally catch a glimpse of it wings.

Throughout the fight this happened a few times. It also sent monsters out to look for you so you end up having to fight them and stay hidden. Then comes the awful moment it starts to tear down the pillar you are using to hide from it.

It was one of the few dungeons once I had finished I immediately want to go back and try again.