Free Realms NDA lifted

As the NDA has been lifted as of 22nd April, I guess I can start telling you of my limited experience of Free Realms.

For those not in the know, Free Realms is a game set in a humorous, kid-friendly, fantasy-themed world.  As a player of the game you will be able to choose from classes such as adventurer, ninja, mailman, medic, blacksmith, miner, warrior, archer, treasure hunter, wizard, kart driver, chef, brawler and explorer, you can take on any role you want at any time at the by going to a window and selecting which ever persona you want to be at that time.  The game limits barriers to entry and encourages social gameplay where, regardless of level or class, players will be able to interact, join forces and play together.

The game is certainly unique against any of the games I have beta tested and played, I will say this, it has some fairly good staying power, with flashy cartoon graphics kids should get hooked to it pretty quickly.  The User Interface is very nicely done, it’s a cross between World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 it has similar key presses to bring up familiar menu’s such as Quest windows, map, inventory and so on.

Entry into the game is through a tutorial, you are shown how to use the mouse, keys and look around, which for a seasoned gamer is annoying (as you can’t fast forward through it), but I can certainly see the benefit for youngsters and possibly parents who are not articulate in using the mouse etc.

Once you’ve learned the basics you have to go through a few different tasks before you can leave the tutorial.  From chasing Robgoblins down hills to escorting a pig to its owner you soon get used to the controls.

It’s within the tutorial that you get a feel for how the game will work, each section of the tutorial leads you towards an instance where you learn how to do something.  Initially your choice is Chef & Brawler.  I took chef to start with and was impressed with what you could deem as the tradeskill part of the game.  It was nicely wrapped up in quest, from harvesting your items to cooking them at the stove.  However there is a twist.

The harvesting portion of the quest leads you to a haystack where you needed to forage a number of items from it.  Once you’ve clicked the haystack you are whisked off to a mini game much like bejeweled where you must link up like items.  Whether there was a time limit on this mini game I don’t know, but I completed it and returned to the quest giver.

I was then directed to the stove to produce the food.  At this point I entered another mini game, but this was more cooking with mama with all the actions to go with it from stirring the mix, to chopping the items.  It was entertaining and far better than any attempt in the past from Everquest 2 & World of Warcraft tradeskills, it actually felt a lot like you where playing on the Wii.

At this point I was eager to get into the game proper and passed through the rest of the tutorial quick, which in essence only took me around 10 minutes to complete.  I was then dumped into a starter area, ahead of me where a number of other players milling around with NPC’s stood around offering quests.  Behind me was the port stone that I arrived by.  The Port Stones are the transportation system and lead you all around the world.

After wandering around a bit and doing some quests I found my way to the race track.  The sounds of racing ahead I started chatting with some NPCs in the area.  One was for the Destruction Derby, the other was for the Racing Karts.  I was feeling a little violent and jumped into the Destruction Derby and tried out the tutorial (there’s one for everything in this game).  Using the same keys to move my character, I entered an instance and started to drive around and destroyed the NPC pretty quickly, after repeating the feat I was rewarded with a win and returned to the main game after the loading screen.

Next up was the racing karts, same deal, instance appeared and I set off and got an uncanny feeling I was playing a poor version of Mario Kart from the Wii.

It was at this time that I had to log off and I did so pretty refreshed.  I enjoyed the experience especially the ambience of the game environment.  For a browser powered game that downloads the content as you go (after the initial 60mb engine download), I was impressed.

SOE may have hit on a pearl here, a free to play content streaming game with a relatively small download that allows you to advance your character without combat play with anyone at any level of the game.  It’s nirvana for the casual gamer.  With the ability to share user created content including video and images, you can see how appealing this is.  It’s Animal Crossing on a grandioso scale.

For those with kids, I’d give this a thumbs up.  If you’re a SOE subscriber, you’re not going to lose out on anything apart from time if you don’t take a look, it’s an interesting concept.  It kinda reminds me of Puzzle Pirates.