[Subtitles by danielsangeo] Welcome to the Secret Dungeon. Today, Halloween, we're
covering "The Secret World". This game covers some
new genres for the show as this is an MMORPG with some
alternate-reality games also. Yeah, that's a game genre. It's
not as cool as it sounds, though. So this game is all about fighting eldritch
horrors, investigating conspiracies... a simplification would be to
just call this "X-Files Universe" but with less aliens, more evil. You start off the game and you get to
choose between three different factions. I'll just simplify this
for you a little bit. Yeah, there we go. The Illuminati in this game are basically a
Hollywood-ized version of corporate America essentially acting in a sociopathic way
as a means of acquiring money and power. Except they deal with all sorts of
supernatural forces and blackmail instead of just stock shares. I personally think that the real
world equivalent of forces like this affect us way too much as it is, and even those this is just a parody, the portrayal hit a little
too close to home for me. Talking with this lady for five minutes made me want to burn this
facility to the ground. ["Aim high and achieve even higher. ["It's not just in your best
interest, it reflects on me, too, ["and that is super-important. ["Make me look bad, I'll
mount your head on my wall ["as an object lesson
to the next fuckup."] But, if you've ever WANTED to work
at Comcast, Verizon, Bank of America, or, hey, Electronic Arts,
you may enjoy this faction. ["...and you may be feeling
some discomfort from the... ["...microchip that I grafted
to your spinal column. ["And, as your doctor, I caution
you--strongly caution you-- ["...don't try removing it, okay?"] But me, I couldn't handle it;
I had to join another one. Now, the Dragon faction is essentially a group that sees itself
as chaos theory in action. By manipulating events in the
right ways at the right times, it leads to some sort of grander
goal that they have insight about? Well, I can totally respect looking
at the big, BIG picture of everything, but I'm not convinced that's
what's actually happening here. This game has demons rising up out of Hell. It has Lovecraft monsters
overrunning towns. So, both Hell and Cthulhu are
a force at work in this world. To me, that changes everything. You're going to try and outsmart the
Elder Gods with your master plan? You think you're going
to out-chaos Cthulhu? I don't think so. You guys
don't know what you're doing. You think you do but you don't. So this clearly pushed me towards
the final faction: the Templars. They're your old world, fight
against the darkness secret society. ["You came to us in search of a purpose."] Yeah! ["And mark this-- there is no
purpose greater than ours."] YEAH! Now, I don't always like to play
as a goody two-shoes in RPGs, but when what you're
fighting looks like this, or this, and we could be losing, then yeah, we need to stop screwing around. Support your local Templars. So, once you've joined the Templars, you
make a character, then you start the game. The short version here is you're one
of the X-Men and have special powers except less-defined. So, the secret society of your
choice has come to recruit you. You're also having dark
visions about the world ending but don't worry about that. Now, I've pulled this
trick on you once before so I may as well get this out of the way. Yes, this is an online game, and yes, this was published, though
not developed, by Electronic Arts. But unlike SOME games, at
the time of this video, you can still play this game and
they're not shutting it down tomorrow. Now, after what EA did to BattleForge,
you might think I'm a hypocrite giving money to EA for yet
another online-only game. And... you would have a point.
All I can say is, I tried. I'm normally not really into
MMORPGs for a few reasons. I love exploring the worlds but tend to not like the combat
or the piecemeal story approach. I've tried a few of the
free ones for a few hours but that's about the
extent of my MMO playing. So when "The Secret World"
came out a few years ago and had a subscription fee,
I didn't even look at it. But, of course, not long
after the game came out, they dropped their subscription fee, but it was an MMO, still pricier
than what I normally pay, so I didn't think much of it. But, over time,
I would keep reading about it and the game kept dropping all
these buzzwords and phrases on me. It's like they were trying to check off
every box to entice me into playing it. But the review that finally pushed me
over the edge was this guy: shadoza. It was just this one sentence: "Currently, I am undecided on
whether I love the game or hate it." And this is coming from someone
with 2,873 hours on record, 77 hours in the past two weeks.
That's almost a full-time job. As my friend put it, he doesn't know
whether he loves it or hates it, and apparently, he has
to be really damned sure. So when it went on sale marked down a bunch,
yeah, I finally caved and had to try it out. Again, I'm not against online-only
games, just the killing them part. So, did it change my mind about
MMORPGs? Well, let's find out. Once you get out of the cutscenes, you
get to explore the city which is London. Now, if you joined a different faction,
you'll have a different home city, but I tried to explain earlier that
you should've joined the Templars. Now something else I want to mention is
that this is kind of a mainstream game so I'm adopting a new policy on that. While I won't leave you in the dark,
this isn't going to be a thorough review. There are other more objective reviews
out there and I mostly agree with them. Although some of them are
delivered so dispassionately, I don't blame you for not
wanting to watch them. ["Physical proximity comes into
play on occasion, but while--"] No! Say it like you MEAN it! ["Abilities do tend to
play off each other--"] PUT SOME HEART INTO IT! ["--exploring various skill
combinations can be fun."] RAAAAAAAAAAH! Anyway, my point is, if you want a
full review, go find another one. I don't care about tier-5 crafting... And hey, because this is
going up on Halloween, I'm going to give you the Halloween tour. Because, despite the initial appearance, this is actually one of the
best Halloween games I've seen. See, look, we have a skeleton,
another pumpkin mask, a Freddy Krueger-looking pumpkin, a chipmunk with an assault rifle, Anubis, some dudebro... I guess that's his girlfriend there... Actually, even when it's not Halloween,
this game has some fashion pioneers in it. Now, this game is not the scariest. I was hoping to have
something scarier this year, but this episode had to be
THIS year. I'll explain later. All right, since I'm in the driver's seat,
we're going to focus on what's important and that's this guy. Look at this guy. All right, game... [clapping] Good job. We're starting off strong
with a guy dressed like this putting on a puppet show telling
us how we're all going to die. ["You don't have to take his word for it."] I am SO down with this.
This guy knows I am, too. So, he gives me a vision of what the
future will look like if you buy the DLC. Then I wake up on the street while
some lady was trying to pickpocket me, then it's off to see more
of London and the Templars. This concept of Templars
organizing to fight demons reminds me a little bit of Hellgate: London, except I guess this would
be a much better prequel. By the way, developers: don't feel like the concept of London
Templars fighting demons is overdone. That market is far from saturated. You
can keep those kinds of games coming. So, after wandering around, you
get acquainted with your handler and then get sent to combat training. Now, the combat in this game... No. Not yet. We're having such a nice
time in London so far, let's not ruin it. So, after combat training, you get your first assignment to go
clean up this town in NEW England where SOMETHING is going on, so we're
going to go find out what that is. So here we are in New England. Actually, it wasn't quite that
simple but it may as well have been. In this game, the myth
of Hollow Earth is real. So the idea is you just
walk inside the Earth to get to different
locations around the globe. Well, that sounds nice,
but I'm not sure I buy it. We're traveling from London to
Maine which is about 3,000 miles. Now, if we had a straight
path through the Earth that WOULD save us some
time, but I did some math and it only comes out to about 75 miles
less than if we were going across land. That's not worth it. We
should've taken a plane. ["Distance and time bend in here. Why,
you can cross the globe in a brisk walk. ["Of course it's perfectly safe. No
one's entirely sure how it works..."] Yeah, yeah, Mr. Magic Fantasy Conductor. The sheer number of cutscenes in
this game is really impressive. I want to say there are HOURS
worth of cutscenes like this. They're all great although the
lip sync can get god awful. Look at this guy; he's out of sync! ["A community on the New England
coast dropped off the map. ["You can disregard the ties and
government coverups. There are--"] Or her. ["The boys on the cordons haven't been
briefed. As far as they're concerned, ["this is just all 'heightened awareness'
after the terrorist attack in Tokyo."] "Ra ra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra." This is a minor thing, though. My experience with MMOs prior to this has always been just some text
block telling you what to do and it's easy to not care at all,
like it's just some shopping list. So even if they talk like Muppets, these
cutscenes do a whole lot to draw me in. So our first contact is a cowboy who just
happens to be hanging out to greet you in the middle of a zombie apocalypse
around his unprotected campfire. Let's listen to him and count
off how many folksy puns he forces into what little dialog he has. ["Got yer southern welcome right
here. Mesquite beans, Texas-style. ["Good oughta face evil on a full stomach. ["Name's Boone. I'm a... troubleshooter. ["You and I need to have a pow wow
before you continue yer little crusade. ["You Templars may be takin' the high road, ["but just watch you don't get saddle
rash from the high horse, okay? ["This ain't my first rodeo. ["I know we're gonna need
all the unity we can get. ["Don't mean to say you
stepped into Hell, but... ["when the wind blows west, you can
just about smell the brimstone."] Wow. It's like actor is
trying to upstage himself. Also if this guy's voice sounds familiar, that's because he's only been in
a billion movies, shows or games. This is a pretty good example of
the writing in "The Secret World". Some of it is clever and some
of it will be corny to the point where it's not possible
to do this by accident so it becomes this black hole of
corniness that implodes on itself. ["I've spent nights in
houses so filled with spirits ["I had to perform
exorcisms to take a dump."] If you like the writing in Max Payne, I
think you'll like the writing in this game. So this town, Kingsmouth,
which is a play on words from Kingsport and Innsmouth
from H.P. Lovecraft lore, is overrun by zombies and just about
everything else you can imagine. In fact, the names in this
town border on ridiculous: Arkham Avenue, Lovecraft Lane, Elm Street, Belmont Avenue, Poe Cove, Dunwich Road, Dagon Bay, Miskatonic Bridge, Sasqua Pond, Kraken Point, Skull Island... Wow. I guess we know what
some of the influences are. Anyway, for now, we have zombies. And, amazingly, this is NOT Romero Road. So if we accept our first quest,
it involves combat, so, uh... Moving along, we come to
a small police station that's holding up against the zombie menace. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a
little bit of Resident Evil 2 or 3 vibe here. I mean we're not in the city but,
other than that, it feels similar. Here we have a folksy sheriff-- ["I'm Sheriff Bannerman and this
down home little state of emergency ["is what's left of my jurisdiction."] --a folksy deputy-- ["We sure are getting a heaped
helpin' of darkness now, huh?"] --a Zen biker demolitions expert-- ["Heh heh heh. Relax, my friend, I got
plenty of experience blowing shit up."] Even though they sometimes
go a little over the top, I feel like every single character
in this game has real personality. I can't tell you what a relief that is
compared to a LOT of other RPGs I've played. I've always felt like what's the
point of even writing a character if there's not something
interesting about them? Also in addition to the animated cutscenes, you can talk with almost every
character about different topics and get spoken dialog as well. They usually have a lot
to say on a topic, too so you may have to click each of these
topics multiple times to hear everything. So, this game is absolutely
jam-packed with narrative. There's more dialog and story in this game
than a lot of single-player games I've seen. Okay, we're about ready to
start the Halloween tour because this place is Spooky Town USA. But that means we're going to
have to go out in the wild here which means things could get hairy and
we'll have to engage in combat, so... Let's talk about the music. The music in Secret World falls
into two basic categories: some generic and forgettable tracks
that aren't especially good... [droning synth music] ...or else REALLY nice themes
for important areas or events... [epic string music] I didn't realize how good they were
right away; they sort of crept in. So they're insidiously good. There's also some fan-submitted music
they added from a contest a while back... [punk rock music] ...but you only hear those in places
that have a radio or at a club. And like almost every MMO on the planet,
there's not enough music to go around because you'll be dumping
too many hours into it. So a mixed bag, but what's
good is really good. All right, time to start the Halloween tour. So don't let the zombies
feasting on corpses deter you, or the bloodstains, or the dismemberments... If you head out, we can see Halloween
decorations all over the place. Look at the jack-o'-lanterns. We have some decorative ghosts. Man, this town is
pumpkin crazy. It's awesome. I like how it's not just one house with a
bunch of jack-o'-lanterns. It's everywhere. You'd think even without all the monsters, this would be the best place to
celebrate Halloween in the country. You could fill a U-Haul with
the candy you would get here. It's kind of a shame the
monsters are here, actually. What happened was a mysterious
fog came to this coastal town that just made everyone want to
get up and walk out to the sea where they all turned into
horrendous sea monsters here. So in case this game isn't
Lovecraft enough for you yet, we're having a nice taste of
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth" here. Speaking of Lovecraft, this game
cannot pile it on hard enough. Dunwich Paper Shop, H.P. Arts & Crafts... Oh, NO! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! I
KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! Okay, fine! Let's talk
about the combat. Dammit. God, where to start? In this game, you have two
primary weapons at any given time: swords, pistols, shotguns,
different kinds of magic... The system they use here is where you build
up combo points that build off another, then you release them for
a more powerful attack. It's actually very complex and intricate so if you're the sort of person who
really likes to optimize your build, you'll have fun here. Even I was checking sites
and doing research on this to try to get more of an edge with my build. So what are the best weapons to pick? Well, after spending
a lot of time with this, I'm reminded of a quote from
the movie "Full Metal Jacket": "YOU ARE ALL EQUALLY WORTHLESS!" Now this game likes to make a big deal
how you can swap your skills in and out to customize the character, and that's an awesome concept, but
the damage on EVERYTHING is pathetic. Now, again, I'm not a big MMO guy, but even for other games, I
tend to hate turn-based combat. I don't like slow combat unless
there's a good reason for it, like you're pinned down
or your leg is broken. If we're fighting, let's FIGHT, huh? Well, this attitude is
not popular among MMOs and "The Secret World" is no exception. Here's me attacking one zombie,
the easiest enemy in the game. Gee, that's taking quite
a few chops, isn't it? But this is nothing. Let's fight a
moderate enemy. One of these sea monsters. Do you see how long this is taking? Now, this isn't a very optimized build,
but it's not an awful one to start with. But here, take a look at
an un-optimized build. Good God! Now, you might think as
you unlock more abilities, you can really dish out the damage. Well, sort of. You might have one
ability that'll take out half their life, but then it takes 30 seconds
to recharge and do it again! For somebody like me spoiled
by action adventure games, this is such a waste of time. How about if the enemy just DIED when
I shoot him point blank with a shotgun? I'd like that! I'm not saying make it too easy. Maybe I wouldn't be able to just
stand here like nothing matters when zombies are trying to tear me apart. I just want to cut the
shit and kill or be killed, not have an extended slap fight. Now, if you're used to MMORPGs,
this is nothing new. I get it. The idea is you're supposed to
be playing with multiple people so that the enemies go down
fast when you're with a group, but "The Secret World" is kind of a
special case. We'll come back to that. Even though I still don't like it, I actually have more respect for
turn-based combat than... whatever this is. "Cool-down combat"? Because good turn-based combat at least
involves a lot of tactics and thought to it. Whereas this is just fighting
with time-delayed water pistols. As a friend of mine once said, "If
an M4 in a game is a bad weapon, "then the GAME is wrong." And it doesn't get better later. The enemies either stay the
same or they get even tougher. I practically stopped looking
at these things as enemies, more like aggressive tree stumps
I had to hack apart slowly. So instead of a heroic Templar, imagine
yourself as just some bad ass lumberjack. Although, if I know my audience, a
lot of you don't even have to imagine. Just choppin' away! I'm sure there'll be a lot of
MMO fans who disagree with me, but I think this combat style is bullshit. It feels like it's just there to slow you
down from rushing through the game too fast. And you know what? I think
the game knows it, too. In one mission later on, you get a
chainsaw to cut apart some zombies. Look at this. This is exactly
what I'm talking about. One swing is killing the weaker enemies, plus I can swing it as fast as
I'm able to for the tougher ones. I don't have to wait five
seconds to swing it again. Not even the most optimized build is
going to get me anything close to this. The game is just teasing me now. So yeah, I HATE the combat to this game which is a big problem since that's
easily half the game or more: just going around hacking up monsters. But, hot damn! The rest of this game? Well, there's a reason this
is the Halloween episode. And now that you know the story on combat, I'm going to switch over to my
more-developed character: Smackycakes. So if the combat starts to look not so bad, it's because him fighting in this early area is the equivalent of picking
a fight with third graders. It took a lot of long, awful grinding like
what you saw earlier to get to this point. Anyway, it's Halloween!
Let's find some spooky stuff! So, besides pumpkins and zombies,
we of course have a creepy cemetery, also with zombies. One thing that's interesting is
when you examine one of the bodies that the zombies were feeding on earlier, ["ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!"] Moving on. Look at this tree! Is this not the
most Halloween trees you've ever seen? I bet they used to hang people
every week from this tree. Hey, I promised golems. Well, if we head over to the
junkyard, that's exactly what we have. Now I was complaining about the combat, but if the game said that one of
THESE could kill me in one hit, yeah, I could see that. Hm. Coal-miner zombies in the
forest taking a swing at me. Feeling a little bit of "Alan Wake"
here, although I can run a lot better. BLBLBLBLBLBL! I like the Reverend
that runs the church here and not just because of how he dresses. Even though this guy is Illuminati, I like
him because he's old school Illuminati. So instead of power, he's more concerned
about truth and overly-complicated puzzles. You know how Republicans and
Democrats don't really resemble AT ALL what they started out as? Well,
the same is true of the Illuminati. Now's a good time to talk about
another element to "The Secret World": alternate-reality games. I thought these died off back
in the 90s, but apparently not. For those that don't know,
alternate-reality games are ones that bleed over into
the real world a little bit. So say you found a phone number
written on a wall in a game. In an alternate-reality game,
you can actually call that number and there would be a clue
about the game or something. Well, "The Secret World"
does that with fake websites, clues you have to go online
to research and so on. I have issues with these for two
reasons. Allow me to illustrate why. So I take this mission and I'm given a
clue here: Follow the Illuminati symbols. Ah. It's the manhole covers. I actually noticed those earlier but
didn't think to follow up on them. So these are pointing in the
direction I should be going. This is very cool. It's a hidden message
in plain sight. Classic Illuminati. So I follow these manholes for
a while, then I come to an end. Ah hah! Another clue. This plaque says, "In the seat of power,
The navigator immortalized, "Illuminating the path
To the sleeping priest and fletcher." Well, there's a
Priest Island in Fletcher Bay. I don't completely get this one, but the
seat of power might be the Town Hall? That's right here and I saw it
earlier so let's check that out. Again, I like this. It's rewarding you for paying attention
to the details you might've seen earlier. Once I get here, I'm apparently
supposed to pick a painting. There are multiple clues
here that are red herrings that can take you to dead
ends. I don't like that. But finally I pick the right
painting, then I get my next clue: "Time is the province of Kings and Gods. "The hands of time points to the truths
written by kings in the words of God. "The path is opened to the enlightened." Well, guys, I'm not feeling very
enlightened. I have no idea. Something about time, I got that much. So I finally had to look at a
walkthrough and here's what they said: "Your first keyword is 'time'. "Look up above the doorway leading
to the stairs in the townhall "and you'll see a clock. It says 10:10." Damn, I didn't even see that. How
about giving me a light source, then? "Secondly...the 'words of
God' refers to the Bible. "'Kings' refer to either
the book 1 Kings or 2 Kings. "Googling...yields something
that isn't really relevant, "but if you look at 1
Kings 10:10, it will say, "'And she will give the king an
hundred and twenty talents of gold.' "So your clue is 120. Also key is
that Sheba, referenced in the passage, "brought the gold to King Solomon. "Coincidentally, Solomon Priest
is the founder of Kingsmouth. "Go to his house beside the church, and head
to the back where you will find a cellar. "Enter the code 120 to enter the cellar." Okay, guys, I don't know if I
can do the same expression I made when I first read that, but you
know that 'I am disappoint' guy? Well that's how I felt about
this. So pretend that's me. Okay, the clock was my bad,
but the rest of this? No. The jumps they're expecting me
to make are WAY too abstract. How do I know the "words of God" don't
mean those numbers back at the church? Or some clue the
Reverend said in his dialog? The person writing the walkthrough even got
the wrong passage from the Bible initially. Listen, I like puzzles but I'm
not one of The Lone Gunmen. And they get worse than this. If you lock me in a cell, I
might eventually get this one, but some of these others I
would never ever guess EVER. And this is the problem with almost
all of these alternate-reality games. They require shot-in-the-dark
after shot-in-the-dark with only the flimsiest of connections. You're more likely to correctly
predict the release date of Half-Life 3 than you are to guess most of these puzzles. In this entire island, I only
managed to solve two on my own. The rest I had to cheat
and not even a little bit. And that brings us to the second problem. Some of these you HAVE to
go online to get more clues. I know that's the genre but I see
that as a failure of the puzzle because this isn't the 90s anymore. Once you're online, it's too easy to just look up the
damned answer to the puzzle instead. If I don't have to touch a web browser and can clearly figure out the puzzle
from the information given, great. But as soon as you're sending
me to Google, game over. Speaking of which, I like how the
Reverend actually mentions Google. ["Forums, forums that
don't show up on Google."] It's a small thing but it's refreshing to hear real world
references in a contemporary game. It makes the experience more real. Okay, back to the tour. It's the Zombie Bridge! Don't wake the zombies! Don't wake the zombies! OH NO! WE WOKE THEM! Yeah, this totally isn't the
Evil Dead cabin or anything. This is also named Ash Forest. Get it? And we have Bigfoot, because, why not? Now, I was mistaken when I mentioned
there was a witch in this episode. I remembered this lady being a witch
but she's just a fortune teller instead. Not that there's much of a difference. Her backstory is pretty cool. Remember how everyone who got touched
by the fog walked out into the ocean? Well, she WOULD have, except she was
literally tied up during an S&M sex session so she was
restrained until it all blew over. She also fakes her fortune telling accent. Once again guys, this is how you make an
RPG great: give your characters personality. Anyway, she's having
trippy visions of a raven, so since you're part of the supernatural
detective club, you're on the case. This mission was a lot of fun. You get to chase down these
ravens from their flight paths, and then they lead you to a revenant
who's causing the psychic disturbance. Also, maybe it's just me, but this playground area remind a
little bit of "Sanitarium" visually. And hey, I ended up finding a
witch anyway, so we're good. Next, we have a poltergeist, although
all it does is annoy you, really. Very true to life. Here's some sort of oil spill but it's been classified as safe by
the EPA so nothing to worry about. Hey, it's a ghost conductor. This guy's going to be
roaming the Earth a long time; we've shut down a bunch of railways
in the US. Sorry, ghost conductor. And I am glad to give this
game my seal of approval as it has a haunted amusement park. Although I have to dock points
because whenever you enter inside it, it distorts the screen and
gives you some light static. When I played this, I remember wishing
I could see more of it clearly. Well, it appears that
I'm going to get my wish as Funcom has decided to make a prequel
single-player game to this called "The Park" and it uses the exact same assets. Now I'm sure I'll play that at some point, and I totally approve of repurposing
your assets towards something fresh, but I think in this case, it might be
the sign of something darker at work. I'll come back to that. Not sure what's going on
here. I doubt it's legal. WELCOME, PARDNER, TO WENDIGO RANCH! YEE-HAW! This decaying gothic mansion reminds
me a little bit of "The Black Mirror". Okay, maybe not that part. This is maybe the second
creepiest part of the game. The audio really builds
up the tension for this. It's promptly ruined by their
heavy-handed approach to the ghosts, but you can tell they were trying. Oh, this is some bullshit here. I guess I can't get too mad
because it is a GHOST attacking me, but rub it in why don't you? Now, coming back to alternate-reality
games and conspiracies for a second. You might think I am making this up,
but while I was playing this game, I started to notice a certain
graffiti pop up where I lived. TSW. Hmm. "The Secret World"? The more I looked around, the
more it seemed to come up. If I were to plug their locations in
on a map, would it give me a clue? Was it a stealth marketing campaign by EA? I mean, surely it's not
just some dumbshit tagger putting his initials because he doesn't
have any ACTUAL graffiti art talent, is it? We may never know. I don't know if we should buy pumpkins
from this lady. What do you think? I think they're a little pricey. Yeah, nobody was ever
sacrificed here, I'm sure of it. Well, I promised some cultists
in this episode and here we are. They survived the fog because they
had their magic runes protecting them. The Morninglight. Yeah, that's
totally not a cult name. And of course one of the
followers is named Moonbeam. I like their leader here. ["We're disciples of doom, but change
won't happen unless we up and act. ["Sure, Rome wasn't built in a single day ["but it sure as hell wasn't
built by deadbeat procrastinators ["lazing around on their
asses, smoking weed either."] Truer words were never spoken. This guy doesn't need my help. Looks
like he has things under control to me. And we have another nice side-attraction
of a writer holed up in a lighthouse where all he does is write,
get drunk, snipe zombies, and take potshots at anyone
else that gets too close. ["Every day it's the same thing-- ["drink, shoot, write, write, shoot,
drink. Like a hamster on a wheel."] Living the dream. This place is cool: Innsmouth Academy. Gee, I wonder where they
came up with that name. Anyway, this place is for Illuminati pupils
and it's basically Hogwarts for the occult. You have students trying to raise the dead,
summon demons, practice death curses... basically all the stuff they don't want
you to do in the Harry Potter books. The grounds are absolutely infested
with spirits and... whatever these are. Uh... Running around here kind of
reminds me of the game "ObsCure". Also, one of my favorite characters is here. The headmaster has this real
obsessive-compulsive vibe about him. ["A thorough investigation will follow
as soon as we have appointed new staff ["and dissolved their
predecessors' corpses."] Also, I find it hilarious that he
has latex gloves on at all times. ["Great. We'll have a
sacrificial donation drive. ["Or a bake sale." ["Delightful."] This does not look good, guys. I don't think Santa Claus
is coming to town this year. Oh, and hey, remember NOT to think about
this guy when you go to sleep tonight. You'll be glad you didn't. Here are some more pumpkins
in case you need another fix, And if that's still not enough for
you then we have the Pumpkin King. I think this one is a little
scarier than the Tim Burton one. Aw hell! He's dropping pumpkin bombs! This is gettin' real folks. Ladies. And it's nice to see the gorilla from
"Resident Evil 4" getting some work here too. FIRE! Okay, I said the haunted house
was the second scariest part, so let's get to the scariest. For me, the creepiest part
was the Boogeyman, though they call him "The
Bogeyman" but whatever. First you have to enter this
dreamworld state in order to find him. This is giving me a little
bit of a "Silent Hill 3" vibe. When you find him, he keeps running
from you like a creepy upright bug, then when you see him up close-- YAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYAIYA H! And to wrap up this tour, you got a taste
earlier, hell demons. The Hotel from Hell. We have damned souls, a succubus-- No, excuse me, a "Consecratrix". That's funny. I bet a Catholic
came up with this one. This is actually an early midgame
section, but come on! Look at this! This looks like an end-game Hell night! Because how are you going to top a
Hell dimension pouring into Earth? I mean, this game also
has the forces of Cthulhu, so Cthulhu versus Hell might
be a pretty good versus battle, but this here alone is good
enough for a game in itself. I mean, it's been done before but there's
plenty of room for improvement, guys. All right, we're coming close to the
end, and I have a confession to make. I oversold this episode a little bit, because I promised mummies,
werewolves and vampires. And this game DOES have all those
things, but I didn't get to them. What you've been looking at is
just the first third of the game. There's also Egypt and,
of course, Transylvania. So, why did I stop here at Egypt? Well, let me say, it's harder to
make things spooky in the desert. It's doable but as
soon as I left New England, I lost that rich vibe I was getting and
it started to feel like any other MMO. I mean, look at this. This is what
you're competing against, desert. Now if the combat wasn't such a chore,
I absolutely would've kept going. But to grind through this? No, I'm done. I did want to see Transylvania, but it's
okay. I feel like I got my $12 worth. Besides, I found a werecat and a chipmunk
with a Nosferatu mask. So, two out of three. Okay, awards time. First award, you're going to see this
one for every game that's relevant-- Depends on a central server. I can't emphasize enough how much that
impacts a game. Its life depends on it. Next award-- I was originally going to
give it a "Doesn't respect your time", but it actually really does
when you're not in combat. So instead-- fatal flaw. For my taste, the combat holds
back everything else in this game. If this had a good combat system, this would
easily be one of my all-time favorite games and I would've played
it to the end for sure. And the final award-- Somebody crack this. You know how some people
make Christmas wishes? Well, I'm more of a Halloween
guy so this is my Halloween wish. Now I don't actually
expect anyone to do this because I may as well be asking
someone to learn Sumerian. This is just me hoping. I want to see this game
live on after it shuts down. Because this game is going to die. You know how I know this?
Because just a few months ago, Funcom put itself up for sale.
They're on the rocks right now. I think that's why "The Park" is
using existing assets to save money. So, everything you've been watching
is up on the auction block. Its future has vultures circling it. After all, the buyer might not
be interested in this game. It wouldn't be the first time
something like this has happened. But, before that does
happen, I have another wish: Anybody who has a
legal background out there, I want you to start sharpening
your knives. You know why? Because of this stupid advertisement
Funcom put up all over the place: "Pay Once, Play Forever". FOREVER. They're honestly saying that about this
game that REQUIRES a central server? Now, at first, I thought that this
was flat-out false advertising. On their Steam page, that's
all it says. "Play FOREVER." That phrase doesn't leave a
lot of ambiguity in my mind. What would they say in court? That "forever" REALLY only
means more than one month? But in their trailer video, you
see "Terms of service apply". Well, their terms of service say
they can do whatever they want and don't have to keep it
running for any reason. Why is this okay? That would be like me saying, "I will give
everyone who watches this video free candy. "You watch this video,
I will mail you candy." Then, in the end credits, I say, "I have no
obligation to give you candy for any reason." So, I lied, but it's okay
because I said I was lying later? And I know Funcom is lying. I just
can't prove it until it's too late. So maybe you legal types can find
a way to get this some attention. It's not that I even want to
Funcom to suffer. I don't. I just want to see the
whole industry and gamers start to pay attention to the
practice of online-only games dying. And maybe legal action
based on false advertising is one way for people
to start noticing this. I mean, maybe they're right. I would love for Funcom to
make me look like an idiot and hear an end-of-life
plan and in 20 years, you'll still be able to play this game. But I just don't see that kind of guarantee if they're putting the
whole company up for sale. And the thing is: I think this is
THE most deserving MMO I've ever seen of wanting to play it single-player. Remember how I said "The Secret
World" is a special case? You can play 95% of this game solo and
it's still a pretty rich experience. That's what I did. I played every single quest on this
first island because I loved it so much. This is a single-player
game handcuffed to an MMO. Fix the combat, and this
game is an unparalleled joy. Also, you know what's nice
about server emulators? Sometimes you can tweak the values so that
you can play them the way you want to. That means my chainsaw build could
theoretically happen some day. So my point is, for anyone who wants
to try and crack it, don't wait. Let's help Funcom make good on their
promise and emulate this BEFORE it dies. Don't let "The Secret World"
become the super-secret world that no one can ever play again. That's it! Have a happy Halloween. And remember: Support your local Templars. ["I killed the Devil
I took his soul ["I took his kingdom
I took his throne ["I raised his army of the dead
Look around before I said, ["'More zombies, more zombies
All we need is more zombies, ["'More zombies, more zombies
Just keep it up with those zombies.'"] HEY! I DID IT! I WON!
I FOUND CARMEN SANDIEGO! NO WONDER NOBODY COULD FIND
HER! SHE'S *INSIDE* THE WORLD!
