The Secret World

startsyou off strong with story. You'll choose your faction from among threesecret societies. The Templars are, of course, holy crusaders. TheIlluminati are all about power and wealth, and don't care who they haveto manipulate to get it. The Dragon seek to find order in the art ofchaos. After you create your toon and dive into the game, you'll betreated to cut scenes that all essentially follow the same story, butwith color and characters relating to the faction you've chosen. Onceyou've moved through the opening cut scenes, and a brief flashbackexperience that takes place in Tokyo, you'll head to your startingcity: London for the Templars, New York for the Illuminati, and Seoulfor the Dragon.

After completing some missions in your starting city you'll be

faced with one of the more daunting tasks style="font-style: italic;">The Secret World

has to offer the uninitiated--choosing your weapon. While this may

seem simple enough, it has long-range ramifications--the weapons you

choose (you can equip two at the same time) will determine which abilities you can use. The game gives you a little guidance, but unless you're

either intimately familiar with MMOG class mechanics and able to apply

some informed guesswork, or you've done your homework in advance,

there's a possibility that you could find yourself making some

decisions you regret. More on that in a moment.







Character Development and

Builds







The Secret World

features an Ability Wheel--Funcom's over-achieving answer to skill

trees. Essentially, the new character is faced with a dizzying array of

about 500 options, each of which are accessible to any character. (In

theory, you could learn every single one of those abilities given time

and persistence. In practice, maxing out 2 of the 9 ability trees is probably more than comparable with a complete level-up experience in other MMOGs.)







It's entirely possible and, in fact, easy to make a bad, ineffective build in The

Secret World. The game won't stop you from, for example, slotting no damage abilities as you spend Ability Points (AP) to purchase abilities and Skill Points (SP) to increase your effectiveness with your weapons and gain access to more powerful gear. Quite intentionally, there's no respec available - Funcom felt even an expensive respec would be game-breaking. Unfortunately, gameplay alone might not reveal early on that you've made some not-so-great build choices. In fact, you may not wise up to your relative ineffectiveness until you're getting thrashed in PvP or taking a beating in a dungeon.







The good news is, Funcom made a wise design move with their implementation of the Deck system--a system of premade templates that let you follow a build roadmap. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the idea of creating a build from scratch, you can either follow a deck template or study it to learn how good builds are formed. Unless you've got build-making chops, this is likely the route you'll take, at least initially.







Combat







Your early experience in The

Secret World will have you facing off against hordes of

zombies and other undead creatures. And you'll probably have fun doing

it initially. But if you're expecting combat along the lines of

Funcom's Age of Conan,

you're going to be disappointed. The challenge in The Secret World's combat comes with

selecting the best combination of seven active and seven passive

abilities to equip on your hotbar. Beyond that, it isn't particularly

complicated. You'll use abilities that build resources, dodge your enemy's ground-targeted attacks, and then follow up

with a big bang that consumes those resources. You'll throw utility

into the mix as you're able. It can become repetitive as you churn through hundreds of mobs in Kingsmouth alone.







The Secret World

does allow you to fight that repetition to some degree, though--you

can (and should) eventually create multiple builds and switch them out

as the situation demands. With a new build, at least you're working on spamming

(albeit in a logical, purposeful way) a different set of abilities.







Fortunately, enemy encounters with all but the most run-of-the-mill trash mobs will throw challenges into the

mix to keep you busy. Unless you're actively getting out of the way, monsters will inflict various states designed to afflict or even just knock you down and steal your lunch money. You can do the same to your enemies. It's a fun dance, if one more harrowing than complex, and you only really see it play out in dungeon encounters and world boss fights.







Missions and Story







If there's one thing The

Secret World does not lack it's a great story. Three

secret societies with opposing purposes are forced to stand united

against the encroaching darkness in a world where every myth,

nightmare, and conspiracy is true. A good horror-themed MMOG has been a

long time coming, and The

Secret World delivers in spades. The story has depth and

purpose, and missions range from the simple "kill off some zombies"

type to complex investigation missions where players will have to put

their real world puzzple-solving, clue-finding, truth-seeking abilities

to the test. There's a mission type for every play style, and none of

them disappoint.







All in all, gameplay is rich and complex--if you understand what you're

doing, or take the time to learn, you're likely to play well and enjoy

the hell out of your time in The

Secret World. For every drawback, there's a counterbalance that

mitigates it somewhat. The pain of being unable to respec can be avoided

by using the premade Decks as a template and modifying your abilities as needed. The whack-a-mole combat is kept from being stale by employing interesting enemy mechanics, as well as the ability to create multiple builds

and change things up a bit. And the story is capable of rendering the

whole thing fun, even for those with unanswered gripes.

