Cabal 2 - Review

Cabal 2 was released June 2nd and I was excited to see what it was all about, considering the first Cabal wasn't in my opinion all that great. Though I threw my preconceived notions out the window as the download bar got closer and closer to the 100% mark.

I am not going to lie, my excitement dead right there.

Now I understand that this is just the beta release and it is just the first week of the launch, though the character classes were limited and the customization (which is personally my favorite part) was a bit lack luster. There are only a hand full of classes and I know that I shouldn't complain about this knowing that it is just the start of the game, so lets look more at the customization.

Of course you have your presets, but who wants to do that? The fun of entering a new world is to reinvent yourself  as a hot Asian looking woman, right? Don't act like it is just me.

The options were there, the effects were not. I had to strain, leaning into my monitor to even notice the changes made from 0 to 100. Cheek bones didn't move, arm thickness was nonexistent. Which was quite odd considering that they gave you an option for body thickness that made me look like a, lets say, a 'healthy' woman. Now, if I can change the body thickness that far, am I just going to have small arms and legs? Dammit, there is nothing wrong with fighting off BAMs with my bat wings waving around like a regal flightless bird doing a mating dance!

Too much? Okay, lets move on.

So now I was in the game, with my Asian looking Force Archer, ready to explore the lands. Or not, because I soon found out that this MMO is very story driven, which is not a bad thing. Though if you are going to be a strong story based game please follow the story of finding a little girl and how does killing 5 beetles help me in finding her? It doesn't, I just simply doesn't.

Speaking of story driven and following the story line, when I hit 'm' to see my map there was a single trail. There was no room to explore with either invisible walls or rocks/cliffs you can't jump over. Usually I wouldn't mind the story, linear gameplay or the not so customizable characters, though it was all done in such a horrible way.

If this game came out in the early 2000s it would have been raved about and a great MMO. I am not just talking about the halfway decent graphics, but more of the feel that the world gives off. There are no new ideas, monsters, NPC or even classes. Everything is just how typical people think a traditional MMO should be and it saddens me. It saddens me to think that with all of these other games pushing the bounds of what a free MMO can be, ESTsoft wanted to settle for mediocrity.

Now, please don't get me wrong, the game if changes are made could be a well rounded game. I hope to test this game out soon down the road so that this review could be a bit more positive, because not everything was bad. The combat system was promising, it wasn't a drone style fight to where you click an enemy and it starts attacking for you. If you want to hit something you have push your hotkey button every time. This made me feel like I was not only the driver of an avatar but it immersed me into the fight. Now the opposite of that feeling was the auto run feature that allowed you to click a quest and it took you to the area automatically.

If I didn't think before that ESTsoft didn't care to put together an amazing original game, I now know that they didn't want you to have a unique experience either. Dragging you from one quest to the next is the ultimate insult to any gamer. The journey to discover or to make mistakes or just goof off as you head your way to the next objective is the fun all gamers should experience.

Needless to say as of right now, this game is not for me, its not for you and its not for anyone. Uninstalled and hoping that the patches to come enhance the game to be relevant for today's standards of what a free MMO is and can be.