First off, a great big shout out to Crowdtap.com! This blog will be one of the many in the next two weeks as I test out The Secret World game, given graciously through Crowdtap in The Secret World Party. In the next two weeks I will be playing The Secret World, as I play I will give my opinion and explore The Secret World, all leading up to the party event on Halloween. I will be exploring the game, writing down every detail and when Halloween comes I will explain to my party guests what I’ve learned so far, how to play the game, show off my favorite weapons and locations and then set them loose on special challenges (which will be video recorded!) when the party date comes.

So far, with about an hour of playtime, here are my first impressions.

Intro videos are a nice edition and show you what exactly you will be getting into, each of the three factions
Templars, Illuminati, and Dragon have their own videos and seem to have their own storyline.

Although I have only played the Illuminati so far, I will plan on playing all three and giving my opinion on each individual society. I find this a fantastic plus in the game, instead of just throwing you in with a generic nobody, they allow you to choose and give you free reign.

When you choose the faction, you get to choose your name and design your character. The character naming is a bit annoying, I had to try about 10-15 different combinations for a nickname (mandatory) before I could play – How is this going to fare in the future when there are so many more players and taken nicknames? The character design is pretty in depth, not quite to Saints Row 3 in depth, but much more detailed than most games.

The game looks similar to an awesome mix of Assassins Creed and Dog Days / Grand Theft Auto. This might not be the style everybody will enjoy, but I think it is very nice.

I am not sure if it is my resolution, but videos look… small, stretched out, so to speak. I am on a widescreen monitor and I imagine this is what is causing it. I will experiment more with resolutions and quality settings as I play on. My current setup is on a Sapphire HD Raedon 6870 video card, ASRock 970 motherboard with 8GB ram and 22" monitor. I plan on playing this game with everything maxed out.

The first missions are very linear, but it is within reason. They cannot simply drop you into the game without first introducing you to the story, so, this is understandable. Hopefully within the next couple hours of gameplay the game will open up and allow complete free reign.

The characters thus far in the Illuminati society faction are quite... entertaining. There hasn't been enough time for any in depth character building but so far the characters seem quite interesting. And a little kooky.

So that is my first impression of the game, and if it is any indication of how it will be in the near future as I continue to play, it is going to be quite awesome.

Once again, a great big shout out to Crowdtap and The Secret World for allowing me to play, review, and have an awesome time with the game and soon with all my excited friends once the party kicks off.