The Secret World Anniversary

Why yes, the coolest MMO ever is celebrating its one year release--not with champagne, but with monsters! For the duration of the event (July 3rd-July 8th15th), anyone can download the game at no cost. Otherwise it's buy-to-play.

And since no one will be reading my review of The Secret World in Conjurings (yep, still no ToC), thought I'd talk a bit about the game.

For all its flaws, bugs, broken PvP... it really is a fun game, or at the very least, refreshing. There's a sea of high fantasy games out there, and after a while they all start looking the same. You don't see too many games where you can visit London and buy some tacos from a ghoul in the back alleys. Or run around in a werewolf infested forest, high on shrooms. Or fight Lovecraftian creatures with fireballs, firearms, or a good ole katana.

Not a Lovecraft monster, but still freaky.

And props to the story, which is something woefully neglected by the majority of MMO's out there. Solomon Island still has the best story-arch of the three zones; dealing with zombies, pale men, dark secrets beneath the waves and one pissed-off demi-god.

And although I don't care much for Egypt, the issue 6 DLC, Last Train to Cairo, kind of makes up for the zone by giving you an Indiana Jones-meets-Stargate adventure. The last mission in the questline is particularly fun: you get to ride a train, killing and/or dodging obstacles as you make your way to the engine before the train reaches Cairo and unleashes its horrible, horrible device. It also gave me a feeling of nostalgia, because there was a train level on the N64 game Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire--which is still an awesome game.  

So check it out if you like challenging, yet fun MMO's and are tired of high fantasy trope land. It's free to play for this special week (you'll have to make a Funcom account, of course). Might as well spend 4th of July weekend hacking zombies with a chainsaw.      

 
More pics! (click on them for a better view)

Egypt at sunrise

Into the cosmos

Dunwich: it's not just a horror