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The Krabbitworld Conundrum

Editor pre-amble: First, let me clarify that I was asked to review Krabbitworld: Origins [1] last year, and as of yet haven’t done so. I have apologized in the past to its creators, and I will do so again now. I try to approach every game objectively and as though I have little to no gaming experience, except for franchises like Mass Effect or Assassin’s Creed, where I’ve played all of the titles. I have always openly stated that the PC is not my gaming platform of choice, I prefer console, and probably always will. I also try to find positive aspects in every product I look at; the Cavechild has no such compunction. He says what he thinks, and I guess, to an extent, that is also a commendable quality.

Krabbit Online [1]My initial experience with Krabbitworld: Origins was not a positive one, as I had problems with the game’s default command settings, and I honestly was not compelled to try the game again. I was not drawn in by the characters nor by the graphics. I’m not new to the RPG genre, I do play Guild Wars, but Krabbitworld just wasn’t doing it for me. Perhaps I didn’t give the game enough of a chance, I can consider that to be a possibility and easily admit that may be so. Perhaps I should have let the developers know at that time how I felt, and rightly so, but I kept hoping that I would get back to it, and it did cross my mind several times, and as my daughter so often points out, I have little concept of time, and all of a sudden it’s months later.

So why is the review being posted now, and why is the Cavechild doing it? Well, yesterday I posted a small rant on my personal Facebook page about Activision’s decision to shelve True Crime: Hong Kong, and basically stating that I will no longer be supporting the Call of Duty franchise with game purchases, and that no one here has ever liked any Halo title. (yes, I hear your collective gasps over that one). I further stated that we would no longer purchase any Activision title unless it was made in Canada, and that they’d better not be planning on putting the brakes on Prototype 2.

Understand that I personally know people who work at United Front, along with pretty well all of the local game studios including Radical, which experienced downsizing last year. They are “in real life” friends, and I am concerned for them and those who work at other studios, as one would be about friends in any other situation. The reply on that rant by one of the two developers considered my opinion laughable and called into question my support of local industry. I will not go into details, and I do thank other friends in the industry who have replied with positive messages in my defense.

That said, and as I stated above, I am remiss in not giving Krabbitworld: Origins a review, and I am willing to own that. I have two other game reviews also outstanding – one just because I haven’t completed the story, the other because I’m conducting experiments with it (which I have discussed with one of the creators, and he’s good with that). That said – all of these titles have been given promo in earlier posts, so it’s not like I am completely ignoring them, I just haven’t given them as much blog time as I should have.

I know it’s not easy to run a small company or to develop an original IP, let alone grow it; I have lots of experience in that department – however I also try to constantly research and learn, as well as connect with people who may be able to offer some form of advice. I also am able to take other people’s opinions and look at them from both sides and try to maintain an open mind on many issues, whether I agree with them or not. I imagine that there will be backlash to do with this whole issue, but I don’t care for drama, so won’t be going there. As an aside, here is one other review of the game [2] which I found via Google, so you as a reader can easily find another opinion on Krabbitworld Origins.

As many of you already know, The Cavechild is a hardcore gamer – he will take on pretty well any type of game at least once, and has been successful on the competitive level at tournaments, to which James, one of our other reviewers, can attest. He is well-versed in the RPG, FPS and RTS genres and openly very opinionated (and stubborn), so without further preamble and heavy editing, here are the Cavechild’s honest thoughts on being tossed into Krabbitworld: Origins with no background on the game, its lore or much else other than it was an RPG-styled title. I did not tell him why the characters have big ears (as you’ll see), or what type of world the game was set in. I sent him the extra key and the download link and told him to play. He played it for about 30 minutes, which probably isn’t long enough for some circles, but if a game fails to engage quickly, chances are it will not easily make it in the open market.

On Playing Krabbitworld: Origins –

Well, let’s get this review on the way. First thought of playing Krabbit online was “Why the hell does everyone have giant ears?” and I thought this looked like a really bad rip-off of World of Warcraft, though I was wrong. This is worse than WoW, far worse. World of Warcraft looks better than Krabbit, plays better too and also lags less.
KrabbitWorld Ogre [3]
The customization of this game is the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. The colours are messed up and when you choose your character’s colours, they lag like hell while applying the scheme you chose. I made my giant-eared ogre a crimson reddish-looking colour and gave him a dark green vest and ice blue shoes. Now keep in mind I didn’t think I’d be getting a neon coloured ogre on an acid trip from hell, though.. guess what happened? I GOT A RAVE OGRE! BRIGHT COLOURS! Minus the techno music. The graphics however don’t mean much to me, if there is a good community and high player base to do co-op or fight against, then by all means I will play regardless, others should as well. Another thing that bugged me a little bit is that some of the animations are not complete, such as rolling, doing a side flip and such, it was quiet annoying but at the same time, laughable.

The item drop/pick-up system is a little different, the clicking everything gets to be a tad annoying when you have a bunch of things on the ground. It can be tedious and annoying after a few loot drops.

KrabbitWorld Tutorial [4]I’ve got a great computer, high quality amazingness to the tip, though this game lagged like hell. I went from 1200FPS from starting it up to 50FPS in game to 1-27FPS and chopping like crazy after I used alt+tab to write some notes down. The tutorial is needing a massive re-doing, it’s boring, it’s lame, it WILL put you to sleep and get you frustrated. So frustrated you might just want to listen to some Kronos to get your anger out at how bad the tutorial is. I was chopping, I was glitching, I was bugging and I didn’t even get to use the character I created for the tutorial, so I couldn’t get used to what little combat usage I could do.

Now the thing is with all RPG type games, you need good controls. this however is not that situation. This had the WORST controls I’ve ever had to try to adapt to, it didn’t work at all. It locks your mouse right away needing to spam the L key in hopes that it will release it. The camera in this game was decent but with the controls it was terrible, a bloody nightmare for a hardcore PvPer such as myself.

The fighting in story mode is a whole different story. I couldn’t even throw one axe swing with my over sized eary ogre, so that is when I called it quits and started writing this. So, until the combat system is fixed that’s as far as I get in story mode, the first fight against 3 shadow warrior looking things. You might want to turn on some Debauchery and bang your head on your keyboard while trying to fight.. it might do some good.KrabbitWorld [5]

All in all, if this game is free to play then that will be good, however if they expect people to pay… It’s not worth however much they want for it. I would say that Micro-transaction for in-game items would be the best route to go. Aside from that, this game is NOT worth paying for.

One more thing; the best part of this whole game was the music for the battle. It had some epic metal like song going and after I tried again to see if a reboot of the game would fix the combat system (which it didn’t) there was some awesome symphony-ish type music was playing.

Graphics: 4/10
Background Audio: 7/10
Music: 9/10
Gameplay: 1/10 (At least they are trying)

Maybe in the future when everything has worked out, this will be a top notch game that might be worth something after all.. I’d still like to know why all characters have huge ears though.