Ever wanted to take part in a world where YOU shaped the world around you ? Then this is your chance.
I have somwhat mixed feelings about this game as I must confess.
On one hand what we have here is a bold experiment to see what would happen if a community of players is given their own world to shape and are left in complete control of it. Whether it will prosper or vanish is completely up to every single player. On the other hand it might have just been too bold of an experiment... but only time will tell.
The game starts off simple enough. As usual you are required to create a character. You get to choose between 8 different factions to join, ranging from different government departments, corporations and more or less criminal organisations.( Please note that this will heavily influence the way you experience the game to even who your friends will be ) You then get to choose the usual gender, face and clothes of your character as well as his profession ( character class ) and whether you want to play a short tutorial that will make you familiar with the basic game mechanics.
What is a little confusing about this game at first is that there are no actual character levels as in other RPGs and the weapons you can use are only restricted by your profession. However, instead of character levels there are ranks that you can achieve within your faction. While you can gain your first two promotions by merely collecting a certain number of experience points, higher levels will require you to be manually promoted by a higher rank.
This has a meaning though as your rank does not reflect the strength of your character but your position of authority within the faction. This can go as far as you even becoming the single leader of your faction. However, you should be aware that higher rank means higher responsibility for those that serve under you. If you screw up badly, you can even be demoted back... or in case that you are faction leader even have a revolution against you by lower ranking players who will seek to dethrone you by force if necessary.
Of course gaining rank is not the only way to aquire power in this game. You might as well become a rich trader with the necessary bucks to simply hire soldiers ( who are players too ) to wage war in your name or you might try to set up intrigues against those in your way. Unless you get caught, there is no one stopping you from getting your point accross through lies and deceive.
This happens to be also the breaking point of the game. All those possibilities are not given to you by the game mechanics... but they also don't stop you from doing this. You will simply have to think of your own way to achieve your goals and ultimately shape your destiny.
So getting anywhere in this game will require a fair amount of creativity.
For example: If you want to plot against the current faction leader then you will have to actually convince other players to draw them on your side. There is no quest or something like that where you are told what you have to do to achieve that.
There are missions in this game though. Those unlike quests are not spawned by the game but instead are made by the higher ups of your faction. You can join those once one of them comes up and will be payed according to the overall success of the mission. However, missions can have a different outcome everytime. Sometimes nothing will happen at all and you can relax and chat with your fellow players.
Other times as for instance if an enemy faction has sent a large invading force into the territory that you are to defend, all hell might break loose and battles can theoretically support an infinite amount of opponents who are all players as well.
Next comes the economy aspect of the game.
This one is a bit special as there are no item vendors in this game.
Every item you buy, find or steal has at one point been made by another player, ranging from your new set of armor to your ammo clips.
The way to manufacture items proves to be a bit complex due to the wide array of items that can be made. Basically you are required to mine raw materials from one of the space colonies. The availability of ressources on the single colonies varies heavily and thus makes to colonies worth fighting for. ( Just picture your faction suddenly having the monopoly over a vital ressource for instance one to manufacture medical equipment with ;-D )
The mined materials will then have to be refined and made into production parts which can then be combined into the item your desire.
Due to this completely player controlled market, prices heavily fluctuate depending on the current situation. For instance the price for a certain ammo type might begin to reduce rapidly to to the different corporations trying to undercut each others prices. The same item might later be worth quite a fortune and you will be probably be happy to be one of those who stockpiled them before. At other times you might just be unable to find the item that you are looking for and will need to have those produced especially for you.
Of course the trader can then decide whether he wishes to rip you off or to propose you a fair price... it's simple supply and demand after all.
Now for the part that you have probably been waiting for... the combat system.
Unlike most other RPGs this game features real time first person shooter combat. It is overall comparable to Unreal Tournament. If you happen to have a fast Internet connection you will find that the latency of this game is well enough to support such a combat system even with dozens of players fighting in the same location.
What I found especially interesting about this is that this system doesn't make you automatically a super fighter after playing for a while ( no levels as mentioned ) Of course older players will have more experience with the combat system as well as better gear but unlike in normal RPGs you can still stand a chance since apart from the gear the other player is in no way stronger than your own character.
Roleplaying: This game is all about the roleplay and you are thus encouraged to participate too.
Luckily you don't have to be one of those hardcore roleplayers because due to the way the game mechanics are laid out you will pretty much be roleplaying all the time no matter what you do so your roleplay won't just be limited to story or general game events.
Once you have figured out the basics about the game it will up to you whether you want to be an upright citizen, a symbol of justice, a lowlife mugger, a greedy trader, a spy, a deceiver, a poet, a hailed war hero, a lone warrior, a loyal soldier,
( corrupt ? ) police officer, a politician, a murderer, a drug dealer or maybe something completely different.
Solo ?
Due to the heavy emphasis on factional game play, soloing in this game is not really reccommendable. Believe me that it will be no fun at all without playing together with others. However, it is still possible of course but you will have to decide for yourself if you really want to miss out on all the player interaction which is to me the most fun part of the game.
The bad thing about the RP emphasis is that casual gamers with only a very limited amount of time to play probably won't be happy with Face of Mankind
since the game just won't offer a lot of short term gratification to them.
I would also like to point out that the screenshots that you will find here on Gamespot are outdated due to the long beta state of the game and more recent screenshots can be found on the game's website.
The graphics have been completely revamped and are running on a modified Lith Tech engine which makes for smooth graphics which are however a bit lacking in terms of character customization, a point that is yet to be improved according ot the developers.
The current ingame graphics could easily compete with more modern online games if it wasn't for the areas lacking a bit of liveliness at times so a bit more attention to small details would have done a lot to improve that.
The currently supported payment methods are paypal, credit card payment and mobile phone payment ( the latter one being only available in Germany and Austria )
You will have to pay 9.99 Euro per month, the game client can be downloaded for free.
Phew this has turned out to be more lenghty than I tough so I will conclude this with my fazit:
All in all this game is probably not for everyone out there. The total player control over the game world makes for a very steep learning curve.
If you are the kind of player who values sandbox games and MMoRPGs where the participants actually do roleplay instead of slaughtering innocent monsters then you might just love this one.
The game is also still heavily in development due to a premature release that has been forced by the game's publisher so hopefully the game will improve on the mentioned issues to make it more appealing to a wider audience in the future.
Gameplay: 8/10
great roleplaying which is only hampered by its steep learning curve
Graphics: 6/10
nothing special here, the game environments seem to lack liveliness at times like small details ( devs are improving this atm )
Sound: 8/10
I personally liked it a lot. The music fits very well as do the sound effects
Value: 8/10
Nothing here for you if you are not into roleplaying, randomly shooting people gets old fast
Well I hope that this has been helpful since this is my first review that I am writing here =P