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> Results: Tabula Rasa
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The ESRB Says
Alcohol and Tobacco Reference: GamerDad Blood: GamerDad saw minor amounts blood spatter during battles. Language: There are countless uses of minor language and some use of stronger words. Mild Suggestive Themes: Minor flirting in cutscenes. Violence: Plenty of killing going on throughout. The name Tabula Rasa which translates roughly to 'blank slate' (four years of high school Latin put to good use once again, thanks Mr. B!) implies a rather obvious double meaning - that there is something in the game that represents a fresh start, and that the game itself takes an entirely new approach to the MMO genre. Well, one out of two ain't bad. Tabula Rasa tells the story of a future in which the Earth has been invaded and humanity largely wiped out by an alien race called the Bane, with the few survivors escaping by allying with another alien race also at war with the Bane. There are certain humans who have exhibited special abilities that will allow them to grow more powerful with greater experience and hopefully shift the balance of the war - you are one of those humans. You enter the game as a level one nobofy just like everyone else, take on loads of pointless fetch and kill quests in order to get cool new gear and level up so you can take on harder fetch and kill quests to get even cooler new gear and ... well, and continue the level-grind endemic to MMO's. Not exactly a 'blank slate'. Gameplay is an interesting combination of third-person shooter and action-RPG that is unfortunately destined to disappoint fans of shooters and RPG's alike. RPG fans looking for a meaningful skill-impacted combat system will find this game somewhat shallow, while shooter fans who who are enjoying action-packed games like Hellgate London will find Tabula Rasa lacking in visceral excitement. Probably the most interesting and innovative thing about the game is the 'character cloning' system. At certain points in the game you are forced to choose a path - and when this happens you can 'clone' your character, which saves a copy with your current level intact, but without skills allocated. This way you can build a second character with a different skill-tree setup to see what you like best. This makes the grind process much less onerous. If Tabula Rasa started with a blank slate, it cribbed an awful lot from existing MMORPGs along the way, ending up as a decidedly average experience. But one of the worst things is that the developers apparently combined stress and beta tests, or made some other decision that ended up with way too many people playing versions of the game that just weren't ready for that type of crowd. The problem wasn't stability but gameplay - the core game wasn't interesting or engaging enough to hold their attention, and the release version didn't appear different enough to actually buy. The genre MMORPG contains two statements ('online' and 'role playing game') and an assumption ('massively multiplayer'). Without the assumption being true, all that is left is a game world full of NPC's and a few others to try to group with - this results in a very empty feeling experience, since the core or any good MMO is building up a solid group that you can join on a regular basis to attack things. This leaves the impression that Tabula Rasa has a third meaning - a blank sheet where the user list for servers should be.  
Given the laundry list of content issues the ESRB found with Tabula Rasa, it is perhaps surprising that this is a really mild game. For example, the alcohol and tobacco references are all in the context of cutscenes and mild references from NPC's you encounter. The same is true for the mild flirtation. Also the blood is mild monster spatter ... the only constant is violence. After the quickest of tutorials you are thrust into the action and never stop killing aliens for the rest of your time in the game. However, even that isn't terribly violent or visceral - indeed, this is a game that in off-line form I'd have no problem with my 9 and 11 year old sons playing. However, it is a fully online game with every good and bad thing that entails. And while I found the realms sparsely populated most of the time, I was pleased that pretty much everyone I encountered was mature and respectful - something that is far too uncommon. Nonetheless, most of those people seemed to be teens and adults, and this experience is clearly designed for that age group and I am giving the game a 14+ GamerDad Age Seal.
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