Reviews

Hi guys, Other here! And this is review of Tera Online!
Before I start with the review I will give you some background on the game that you may or may not know.


History

The name „TERA“ is short for „The Exiled Realm of Arborea“. TERA is a MMORPG developed by Bluehole Studio. The game was released in South Korea on 25th January 2011, in North America on 1st May 2012, and in Europe on the 3rd May 2012. NHN Corporation, En Masse Entertainment and Gameforge publishes the game in these regions. In February 2013 the game was renamed to TERA: Rising and turned to free-to-play model.

In September 2014, the game was renamed to TERA: Fate of Arun in the same patch that added a new level cap and expanded TERA's horizons with the new continent in Northern Arun called Val Oriyn. Game runs on „Unreal Engine 3“ , and it's available on Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.



Story :

The two beings, Arun and Shara, titans of unimaginable power, met in a formless void. Somehow, Arun and Shara fell asleep and began to dream. As they slept, the Exiled Realm of Arborea began to manifest itself around them. Continents in Tera are made from their bodies.

As both titans continued to sleep, their dreams came to life. Out of this dream, the first twelve god-like inhabitants of TERA emerged not long before a terrible war amongst them took place.

Yet, Arun and Shara remained in their dream-like state and simply out of their imagination, the first mortals came to life. The mortals and gods fought each other in great divine wars, leaving most of the gods dead, imprisoned, or diminished. Even some mortal species got wiped out; however, others emerged and today, most of TERA's races form an alliance and together they fight evil beyond their world .



Gameplay!

Like every other MMORPG, TERA features questing, crafting, PvE and PvP. Player controls his character from third-person camera view. Player always tracks the enemy with cursor in middle of UI and as long as that cursor is directed towards the enemy, player will cast his skills in order to defeat it. According to „mmorpg.com“ Tera Online has an overall raiting of 7.7 .


Let's start with the Review!

Tera Online in 2018 still has a lot of active daily players! Which means getting a party for your favorite dungeons isn't hard, if you are on good server! TERA NA, EU as well as other regions have their own servers that you can join. Those server are usually divided to PvP and PvE, at the moment PvP servers in Tera NA and Tera EU are most populated ones.

If you prefer PvE over PvP, you will still benefit more by joining PvP server than a PvE server, that is because PvP servers are more populated than PvE ones.

However you should know that you can be ganged up by other players on PvP server, and on a PvE you can not. Cities, camps and other gathering places are usually safe zones, so you can always get to the safe place if you are being attacked by someone. However if you don't want to be interrupted by something like that, you can start on the PvE server.

Now let's get to answering the most common questions asked by old and new players!

1. What are the pros and cons of Tera Online in 2018?
Pros :
- Combat system is very fast paced, what makes Tera very fun.
- Learning how the game works, is very easy!
- Every class has it's own skill rotation that you have to learn in order to deliver decent DPS! Tanks and Healers are bit different.
- Game graphics is very nice
- Quests are not too long or too short, and experience points are obtained fairly easy, and because of it, you can hit level cap very fast.
- Leveling isn't too boring for new players, since you get to try out new dungeons every time your level increases by 3 or 4.

Cons :
- While leveling BAMS are way too easy to kill.
- Getting to level cap is way too easy, which reduces the feeling of success from reaching the level cap.
- Some classes are race and gender locked!
- After some time, TERA becomes too boring since you run out of stuff to do. You find yourself doing same dungeons, same daily quests from day to day. However this will not affect you a lot if you are a member of a very active guild! Which will make the game much more interesting!
- Game optimization is a chaos, even if you own a high end PC, you will still experience huge FPS drops.
- Ping is terrible as well. As a matter of fact, It's so terrible that players developed 3rd party program to run with TERA to help them reduce ping issues in game, which led to a lot of problems between publishers and players. If you are in Europe and you play on North American server, you will most likely always be laging, and you might find yourself searching for this program, which you should not do! Whoever uses this 3rd party program can be easily banned by publisher, and they will not be able to play any longer.

So what should you do? Well if you are from Europe you should play on Tera EU, and not Tera NA! Basically play in the region that is the closest to you!


2. Is TERA P2W in 2018 ?

Short answer, No!

Long answer: Like every other game, TERA has it's own store, from which you can buy potions, costumes, mounts etc. Which you can sell for in game currency, and later use that currency to buy gear etc. Well it's doable! But people still don't do it. So that’s why Tera Online is not p2w in 2018.

3. How hard is it for a new player or a returning player to get to end game content?

Well if you play few hours a day, every day, while using use Elite status and multiple characters to farm materials for enchanting the gear, you will be able to participate in end game content in 20 days since you started.


4. How much does it help you if you join an active guild? It helps a lot!

You want to run a dungeon and for that you need a party. To get a party you need to use Instance matching or LFG, which can take up to an hour sometimes, but if you are a part of active guild, you can get the party much much faster, which will result in smoother, faster and much more enjoyable dungeon run. Plus playing MMORPG alone without a guild or friends, is very boring.

5. What is more important Skill or Gear?

Now for this question, I contacted few of my friends, and they all answered „Skill“, and I agree with them on that, since having the best gear and not knowing what you should do, will just get you killed, and kicked from party. It's better to have Skill and mid-tier gear set than little skill and the best gear.

6. Is TERA Online worth playing in 2018?
Yes it is! Community is great, you can meet awesome people from all over the world, and play with them. Right now TERA is very active and has a lot of players playing it. Not too long ago, new update came to TERA that added more skills to certain classes, which made old players return with will to test out their old characters.

The best thing about Tera is it's Combat system, once you try it, you will understand why is Tera one of the best MMORPGs out there !


You can watch the video review here: https://goo.gl/CPfkc3

While in general terms Shadow of Tomb Raider is a good game, I give it „Meh“ rating, cause it really fails to capitalize on its „natural strengths“. Being the third game for the same generation allows development time and assets, thus you'd usually expect the final part to be above and beyond any expectations. It's frustrating, cause for the fans, that loved previous two games, this one fails to deliver an epic closure — a story is somewhat boring, Lara's battle with her feelings and inner self-gets spoiled very early and later fails to grow into anything meaningful. Lara feels like modern day influencer, strolling around the jungle and offering unsolicited advice to the locals. Dialogue writing is equally poor, indigenous locals without any contact with the outside world, casualy chat in English. Sure, sure... Trinity has thought them English a century ago, yet I fail to understand who updated their vocabulary to modern times. I mean it's a tribe that hasn't even seen plastics! Thus fans are getting more of the same, with some improvement in gameplay and puzzle solving areas. Newbs, on the other hand, will be thrown into a weird adventure and will regret their choice to start their experience from the shadows forever. 
Developers should've aimed higher.


I'll just list most annoying parts of the game in bullet points while saving the good things for last.

• Poor writing - overall story, Lara's self-discovery, dialogues, almost everything except additional writing for manuscripts discovered within the game. A chunk of those is written quite well, offer interesting insights into Aztec, Incan cultures and expands backstory of the Trinity.

• Lazy world craft — none of the inhabited locations within the game feels real, or alive. We visit several villages or cities and all of them fail to feel real, or important. They just exist as weird hubs, with weird secondary quests and even weirder inhabitants. All people in one area have a similar face. Females have slightly more clothing and hair.

• Failed bravery — To be honest, I was fascinated with the developer decision to hide climbable surfaces from a plain sight. Many devs move in that direction and replace outstanding or „glowing“ edges with more subtle solutions, that are directly incorporated into the game world, yet remain easy to spot when a player inspects their surrounding. Within first hour it felt like it works here, yet everything breaks down when lighting conditions change. In caves, sometimes you may fail to see a ledge under your nose due to pitch black darkness, while outside it really depends on many factors. During evening and night, it's hard to spot a ledge further away, while during the day bright light or flares may distort, hide existing ledges, while also creating white'ish spots on surfaces and suggest that a wall may be grabbable or climbable when it isn't. This is one of the key issues with my decision to launch New Game +. On higher difficulties, most of the assists are off, so this issue becomes a real pain in the ass. Not sure if the same problem exists on PS4 PRO and 4K screen though. I could accept the thought that on higher resolutions this problem may be unnoticeable. Anyway, great decision, poor execution.

• Lack of attention to details. Lara falls from a cliff into a pool of water during a cutscene. Water won't splash. Having in mind navigational issues from above, some wooden objects are annoying, cause they look and feel breakable. Same goes for some knee-high obstacles, that we can't pass. I know it's a common issue in many games, but in this case, it really feels like they could avoid that, should they pay a little bit more attention. Same can be said about some random assets scattered on the ground, that look almost identical to lootable boxes and containers. Or piranha schools that form out of the thin water, just because you swim in a weird direction. Or sudden deaths without any reason. Lara's health just starts to drop and she dies :D. Or really stupid checkpoint system, that records a save before short radio dialogue, or throws you half a map away from death location. It feels like the system is more forgiving in an open world, compared to Tombs, but „the rules of the game“ aren't exactly clear. Or fire arrows, that won't burn oil in puzzles, cause that oil is fireproof unless it's a very specific fire... And this list may go on, and on.

It feels like half of all developer attention to details, went straight into the animation of Lara gasping for air. It's also somewhat erotic :D.

• Bugs — there are numerous bugs within the game. Classic ones, like rope arrows failing to stick to a surface, are noticeable, but at least not annoying.  However there's a specific kind of bug, that really damages gameplay. It's a change of Lara's stances and animations in various environments. Lara's stance changes from area to area and sometimes also depending on a costume. With that said in some areas, the square button won't work, in others player can't use weapons and so on. So if Lara enters a cutscene, but player rushes her off the ledge, she may jump, or... jump action may fail, or grappling may fail. This can get repeatable and annoying especially if a recorded checkpoint is bordering on the area where Lara's stance changes due to a sudden call on the radio. I've died due to these reasons maybe a couple dozen times. Few of them actually happened in very hectic sections of the game, where platforming feels more like a series of quick time events (running from flood, earthquake and so on). Those parts of the game are beautiful and dynamic, yet when the game fails to register a clean button press, you tend to ignore all of it and just deal with frustration.
How I deal with bugs? Few — ignore. Moderate amount — just deal with it. One bug too many — make a postcard out of it :D.


• Lazy approach towards an overall flow of the game. Shadow of Tomb Raider feels exactly like two previous games. Tutorial exploration, a sudden crash, frozen and left for dead Lara gets a knife and a bow. The adventure begins, new, „unexpected“ types of enemies are introduced. Most of them boring, mindless zombies. Not literally zombies, but... 

They had this Rambo idea, until they didn't ;(.


• Lazy approach towards new mechanics — there are several new mechanics within the game, but they're there just to play some supportive role. I really loved expanded stealth mechanics, rolling in dirt, becoming one with the jungle, but there are simply not enough combat sequences. It could have been Rambo, but it isn't. Same goes for underwater exploration. The overall feeling of diving caves, lakes and cisterns is great. I don't even mind that with all the talents you can hold your breath „for hours“. Yet it's just a traversal thing, some underwater combat, more underwater puzzles, treasures and crypts would have been great!  

Now for the things that I loved.

• Overall level/world design. The looks of it, as well as paths, hidden paths and zillions of marvelous frames of jungle, mountains, and crypts. Levels are well designed in terms of fun while exploring, as well as aesthetically. The world isn't entirely jaw-dropping, but it's beautiful enough to carry this game on it's own.

• Diving. Even though underwater adventures are underdeveloped, I still loved diving. It felt just right and underwater levels are mostly well executed.

• Lara's outfits. The idea to bring some old outfits is great, but the new ones are even greater. Another half of attention to detail went into designing those I guess. Outfits also come with certain benefits, yet they're somewhat trivial for the first playthrough, but will serve well for those aiming to beat the game at higher difficulties.


Mandatory outfits feel like a great and yet underdeveloped concept. I mean it feels like it could have been something more, but changing outfits just for the sake of few dialogues is rather annoying.

• TOMBS! Tombs are great in this game. When I passed a point of no return in a story, I was literally counting minutes toward the end. I wanted to be done with the game as quickly as possible, to go back and explore a couple of Tombs I couldn't access throughout my first playthrough. Puzzles are sometimes weird, or weirdly difficult, but all of them are solvable without external help while finding a solution always felt rewarding. I didn't care for new skills Tombs unlocks, just a thrill of a challenge and neat level design. Like, really, some of the Tombs are extremely beautiful, which is weird. They save on assets in an open world, populate villages and armies with clones, yet they pour so much effort into an area that will be visited by just the half of all players at the very best. That is the main reason I left Tombs for the last. I mean, I don't regret a minute I've spent with a game and I'll probably have another run later, but I'm just super annoyed by the fact, that third game in a story ark and within same technological generation just feels like a random game made in a AAA studio. Especially in a context, of other iconic characters and flagship games, that in a couple of last years pushed production values through the roof. Lara simply deserves all the attention to detail (tiny and huge) and developers failed at that. It's just another game, but at the same time, it is also a game I will remember for its Tombs. This alone is rather symbolic. With that said, buy it with a discount — minor bugs will be fixed by that time, there's no story someone would be able to spoil for you, thus there's no reason to play it now unless you're a die-hard fan :).

Not while designing this puzzle, you didn't :D. You probably hated us and I love you for just that! 

Mafia III got so rich potential that sinked in a toilet waters of repetitive gameplay and shit-piles of reusable locations. The whole 70-s setting is so abundant, but game developers don't allow us to even touch it. Your options are limited with only two general actions: 1. Kill everyone 2. Kill everyone and steal a car. That's it. No options for forgery, blackmails, bribing cops to arrest someone or poisoning your target.

Why, I ask you, why I couldn't reach lieutenants and capos not only with my rifle, but with their families, with lovers, with their weird habits, which are so suitable for blackmailing? And what's the point of re-hiring the informator? 

Where are hippies? Where is disco? Where are other Vietnam veterans, with after-war depression? Where are Black Panthers? Where are ordinary black people, who don't want to be rebels? Where are celebs on cocaine? Where are first mentions of future AIDS epidemy of 80-s? Where is first man on the moon? What about cops brutality?

With all the «business» opportunities you got during the game, it could be interesting to make your own moonshine or marijuana blend, have some love-affair line, make some shopkeeper change his mind and took away the «No coloured allowed» plate. The list could be endless.

To be honest, I'm on the middle of the game still waiting Mafia III will give something more than only two options.

Love or hate From Software’s Souls series, it is undeniable that From has changed the face of gaming by showing designers and publishers that gamers want a challenge, even it means that they will die over and over again. Many games have tried to reproduce the formula in various ways each to their own results, but after our time with Death’s Gambit, a new side-scrolling RPG from publisher Adult Swim and Developer White Rabbit, we believe they’ve nailed the mark for better or for worst.



When it comes to gameplay, Death’s Gambit is purposely slow, with Soren carrying huge weapons that take time to swing and do damage. A stamina meter is also applied and is associated with multiple features of Soren’s movement including attacks, jumping and dodging.

There is a few problems you can expect from this though and it mainly comes in the form of timing and controls. Much of the enemies you end up going up against are generally fast and your weapons based on the ones we’ve found and gotten to try, are extremely slow. leading to some insanely frustrating deaths that feels like they could have been easily avoided.




It’s because of this that I found myself putting the controller down and restarting the game from the beginning with different stats more times than I cared to admit until I found the right build and weapons that worked for me. If you’re into the meticulous planning with your stats, a lot of the negativity towards being an enemy’s pin cushion will go away.

Even if you’re not like me and force yourself to start over, you can still rack up the experience points fairly easily thanks to fact that you won’t lose your experience – or souls – after you die. This allows you to go and boost your shortcomings without having some crazed maze of death all over again. You do however, lose something equally important and that is your health items.

It also helps that Death’s Gambit is beautifully crafted with some of the best pixel-art we’ve seen yet, which really pulls the dark/gothic world together. It especially makes itself useful when it comes to monsters and extravagant characters like Death. The music helps set the mood and accompanies the art, raising tension in the boss battles and keeping up the sense of dread as you expect to be mowed down by the next well drawn creature.