Project Genom Preview

Project Genom is another addition to the MMORPG list that does something a little different by focusing on skill-shot combat rather than the traditional lock-on. The game allows you to choose between a variety of weapons ranging from junk pistol blasters to melee blades to cut through your opponents. The creators have promised a large variety of features in the future such as grouping, gathering resources, crafting, weapon upgrades, an arena mode, advanced vehicles, diseases, and boss fights. So in essence the game doesn’t have the majority of the features in an MMORPG.

The game is one of the first I have come across that has a skill-shot based system where you must rely on your own aim, rather than having an auto lock system. So the main question most people ask themselves when it comes to a game like this, can an MMO combined with a non-lock shooter create a cohesive combination or does it fall apart in its early stage of creation?

To answer this question, I can say it feels far too strange trying to combine a tactical shooter with an MMORPG. Now I’m not saying that these two genres don’t mix, however at this present moment in time, the gunplay feels extremely clunky. The camera is positioned over your character’s shoulder in third person, which reminded me of the shooting style of GTA, however that is where the similarities end. At points the animation system for projectiles was so clunky that bullets looked like they were hitting the floor when they were in fact hitting my target. I also found that despite having to aim at my targets instead of locking on, the combat was still exceedingly boring.

Now the developers of Genom have promised us many features that are in most MMOs, such as PVP, crafting, character customization, and much more. While I don’t mind alpha games making these kind of promises, I’m not sure how I feel about gaining alpha access through the purchase of a founders pack. So many companies have already used this method to death where they promise a bunch of features once they reach a certain point in founder pre-purchases and ends up being nothing more than a money grab. I’m not necessarily saying that Project Genom is using the same business model, however I don’t believe that a company can always justify promising early access just because you sent a developer money.

To my dismay the largest failure of this alpha so far is its questing system, and the same old back and forth pick up and turn in quest feature. So many MMOs have used the system in which you have to run an absurd distance to find a quest item or kill a certain number of enemies, only to be told to run back to the person who handed out the quest. I swear to god I have run more meters in MMOS than Usain Bolt on the track, and I can safely say I am sick of it. Project Genom is no exception to this plague that afflicts the majority of MMOs, and it would have been so simple to make questing interesting. ArcheAge manage to do this by having you move on to an NPC in a new zone to hand in your quest, but instead of being forced to run back and forth, you were always moving forward.

Another issue with the questing system at this time is that a lot of the voice overs are still in Russian, meaning that you have to do a lot of reading. Normally I’m not bothered by doing a little reading when it comes to questing, at the moment however, the Russian audio continues to play, even if you decide to close the quest window. I ended up running around with a Russian telling me my quest, but because I couldn’t understand the dialogue, it merely felt like someone was Narrating my movements in a language I couldn’t understand. The developers have also made it rather difficult to have more than one quest on the go, due to the lack of clarification on where you are supposed to turn quests in at certain points. The game’s map and quest system makes it so that only your main quest or selected quest shows up on the minimap for turning in. So if you have completed five quests you literally can’t see where all of the turn in points are. The minimap is also not very well thought out, as you will find yourself becoming confused about which floor the NPC is on. At one point I was meant to turn in a quest and could not for the life of me, find out where this bastard was! It turned out that the dot on the minimap was actually below me, however there was no indicator to show that he was on a different floor from me.
I also found that some of the quest lines tied into each other in a way that bewildered me more than The Notebook. The objectives aren’t always clear and will randomly pop in and out of your quest log as you make your way through each section. In the early stages of the game you have a quest that tells you to grab a key that will open a warehouse with gear, however at the same time I received a flash drive for a completely different quest. It became very hard to tell which items were for which quest. Suffice to say I’ve never been so confused with questing in an MMO, which ironically is one of the most important parts of any MMORPG.

The character statistics page is very lacklustre at the moment, which again is a key component for most MMOs. You are able to assign points every level into various skills/stats that will make your character stronger. Unfortunately I found that the character sheet didn’t actually describe what each stat did. I know that most people who have played MMOs know what agility and strength do, however I would still like a little info to be displayed when I hover over a stat. For all I know, having strength over agility while using a specific type of weapon might in fact put me at a disadvantage.

In its current state Project Genom has a half decent base to its game, however there are so many key features missing that I don’t believe I can even call the game a contender in its genre. The games questing system is far too confusing even for seasoned MMO players, while trying to create a new combat system seems like a good idea, it in fact makes the game feel very clunky. I cannot recommend spending the 19.99 CAD to gain early access. The game could certainly grow a lot in the future, however it’s just missing so much that it would be better to just wait.