Review: Fury

Fury is an MMO centered toward PvP. In fact Auran designed the game without any outside world and no PvE. No monsters, no bosses, no quests and no resource gathering, hence no typical MMO grind. Right from the beginning it becomes plain to see that this game needs more ’something’ to stay interesting and the story doesn’t add to the game.

The story behind Fury has you assuming the role of a reincarnated hero. Stop right there, that’s all there pretty much is for a story. As you play you unlock memories from you past lives which in turn unlock new abilities. I guess the writers strike was affecting this game before the protest ever began.

In Fury you are allowed only one character, but you can create templates that allow you be whatever class you want as long as you possess the appropriate abilities. No matter what class you begin the game as you can still switch to another template on the fly. This is a nice feature that allows you to only need to manage one character, and everyone knows you under one name and not several characters. WHen creating your game you are only given a few distinct characteristis to choose from and with the ugly character models it makes it hard to make a cool looking character. Character classes range from the usual fantasy fare, healers, warriors, ranged and mixed variations there of.

It takes a couple of playtimes to get into the game, at first things are a bit daunting. The combat which takes from from overhead 2/3 view, is really fast paced, enemies are coming at you from all sides. After a few times in the arenas, things get a bit easier but not by much.

Fury doesn’t contain any quests in the normal sense, instead you earn essence points in the arenas and then use them to unlock memories in the santuary, and each memory gives you a new ability. There are over 400 abilities in the game that you unlock as time goes on. Too bad many are similar and during combat I found myself just mashing attack skills and not caring what they did just as long as they did damage.

One thing that really hurts the game is the lack of content. As of release there are only six match types and none of them are anything spectacular due to the fast pace and the blandness of the different abilities. The match types range from deathmatch free for all, team vs. team, 1 vs. 1, and one where the first team to collect enough crystals wins.

The graphics on a lower end video card are something to be desired. The backgrounds in the city are nice but the character models look like Nintendo 64 throwbacks. The arena graphics suffer greatly as they look to be several years old. This gives the game a mishmash look and feel.

Due to financial problems with Auran, the future of the game is in question. Another company has stepped in to keep the game running while things are straightened out. This came on the heels of the announcement that the game would be free to download and play.

Not everyone will like this game, those that prefer a game without the typical MMO grind and love PvP will be more apt to enjoy Fury. Though the lack of content may drive away players, the developers are promising more content in the future, like a crafting system and continued updates.

All in all, Fury does not offer enough diversity to keep it in the forefront of the already crowded MMO market. Some thoughtful quests, and maybe some arena battles against some giant monsters might add some diversity to this game and take it from the slums to a level above mediocrity.

Score: 1.5/5

Recommendation: If you’re curious and it’s a rainy day, download it. It is free.