Firefall gets a facelift

So the problem with wanting to write about video games is that I tend to want to play those games. Once I get started, it’s very difficult to put down that keyboard and start composing some thoughts. Is that why I haven’t posted in almost a month? Yep, that’s pretty much it. The new computer has some very nice graphics and playing on a 42″ HDTV has some definite appeal. Most of my time is spent with Star Wars: The Old Republic, Arkham City, and recently the beta for the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Today, however, I feel the need to explain how blown away I was with the newest patch for Firefall.

Fighting at night just after the NDA was lifted.

For those that are not aware, Firefall is an ambitious free to play MMO shooter by Red 5 Studios. I was first introduced to it at PAX Prime 2010 and I was instantly intrigued. I was able to follow the development of the game through Facebook and the community forums. I finally got my hands on the game at PAX Prime 2011 along with a few thousand others. And just last month I got an invite to the closed beta. Of course the NDA prevents any discussion of game play during that early state of the game, but the NDA was lifted as of April 6th. So I took a few screen shots that morning with the best of intentions of posting them with my impressions of the game. We can all see how well that turned out. It was just too much fun to play. I’ve greatly focused on playing the engineer battle frame mostly in PvE combat. The auto-turret is useful if possibly a little on the stupid side, but with a bit of targeting assistance makes for good solo play. I’m still quite terrible at the whole PvP thing.

That brings me to the new patch which has brought some nice improvements to the game. Of course there are the useful mechanical things like the addition (finally) of a friend list in the game. The development team also tells us that they smashed a number of known bugs for this patch as well. So of course what I find most impressive is the new aesthetic changes. Nighttime in New Eden has become darker and there is now an added flashlight feature to help players navigate

Night combat after the April 26th patch.

the pitch black nights. The light sourcing and shadow effects are absolutely superb. I really can’t say enough good things about this change. It’s exactly the kind of detail that invests me in a game and gives me the impression that the development team really cares about their product. I even actually stopped and watched a sunrise in the game. Yeah, a virtual digitally rendered sunrise gave me pause in a  shooter. I noticed the environment getting lighter and the shadows of trees shifting as the sun began to break over the horizon. So bravo to the devs at Red 5 for putting this kind of non-mechanical detail into a game about shooting and resource gathering. Now if only I could stop being absolute rubbish at PvP and playing a recon battle frame.

Engineer and turret scavenging a downed thumper.

Night combat after the April 26th patch.

Flashlight effect and shadows.

The light of the morning sun beaming through New Eden.

Breathtaking lighting effects are present throughout the game.