Tabula Rasa Review

Boomtown has reviewed Richard Garriott’s MMO Tabula Rasa, calling the sci-fi MMORPG a diamond in the rough and giving it an 8/10.

While the class names may not be familiar, the class types on offer pretty much follow the standard roles you’ve no doubt encountered in other massively multiplayer titles. As mentioned above, there’s a medic class, while the roles of AoE specialist, tank, necromancer, nuker and support are all present too. I tried just about all the class types but found the Spy archetype to be the most enjoyable by far; presently it has unrivalled damage output and can even disguise itself to look like the enemy so that it can sneak amongst their ranks undetected.

If you’ve played any MMORPG at all over the past five years then the controls and onscreen interface wont present any surprises either, except, perhaps, for a nifty context sensitive radial menu that pops up when you ctrl-mouse over a player.

Given the sci-fi theme of the game, it’s a little disappointing that there is no first person perspective, but you can get an over the shoulder viewpoint that’s almost as immersive. With respect to the chat interface, it’s an area that has improved greatly in the past few weeks, as virtually every topic was discussed in only one channel, in every European language imaginable server, but the introduction of separate language channels has sorted that particular annoyance.