As promised, here is my "The Secret World" report.
The Secret World (TSW) is a MMORPG developped by Funcom and published by EA, it will be released on june 19, 2012. 
If you want a good and short introduction to the game, just go read this article by Yokina, you may also want to read the official website.

Ok, got it ? You have read all ? Perfect let's start with the report.
Before going into the "I like/I Hate", there are few things to know :
- This week end beta was more a marketing viral OP then a real "beta", the true beta is running for those who pre-ordered the game and it's different from the one I have played.
- Therefore, I consider this event as a preview version : a not-yet-ready-for-release game with the usual glitches, bugs and crashes.
- Then I wont speak about the technical aspect and stay focused on the game mechanics instead (this is obvious).
- Notice the screenshots i post here are all low res, there is a reason for that, it is directly linked to the state of the game.
- I illustrate this article with a stream made by Siliciom Team (the fearsome Starcraft 2 team). It features Lulu ("Naeith"), Yokina ("Linsane") and a bit of myslef ("Crashing" guess why i choose such a nickname...). Please jump at 55 min if you want to see some group action & atmosphere. 

Let's begin with the things I loved.

The quests !
This is the strongest point of this game, no doubt on that. Quests are unique, I mean never seen before in a MMO. I mean too : totally different from the classic wow-tasks ("go there kill 50 mob and report back"). You enter in a world on mysteries and secret, the way to quest is based on investigations, you have to look for clues, ways to unlock the little stories.
Let's take a simple example : in this version you play as Templar member, your mission is to investigate and rescue in the New England city of Kingsmouth. There will be secrets to reveal and you will need to use your brain to find out of to solve mysteries but the brain and personnal knowledge is not enough, Internet is a source of lots of information : google, wiki, forums and even http://www.kingsmouth.com/ yes, the official website of the city ! And yes, it is usefull.

The atmosphere !
TSW is an horror MMO, atmosphere is creepy and loud : the city is covered by a moving hideous black fog, only few inhabitants are still alive and Kingsmouth looks like a ghost town, there are zombies everywhere attacking you by packs of 4, the excellent BGM is just a perfect support to this end of the world feeling.
And as you can see by yourself : graphics are great. Remember I said in intro that I had to play low res... I wish to have low res games as beautifull as this one.

The skills !
No levels nor classes. Yeah finally a non-level based MMO. Everything is based on skills, you still make xp by quests, killing mobs and exploration but it will give you skill points and anima points. Skills are set up as a wheel (see Yokina's article), you can choose your own path and this way create you very own class (yes there will be respec). Excellent. The animea points are used to learn powers associated to your skills. Again, you can mix everything you want and equip any sort of weapons. It's a world of freedom and I do like it.
Notice the UI is very good, looks like android system but it dont eat the playfield window so it's good. 

The things I didnt love.

Combat !
OMGZ !!! What a pain ! Is this a 2012 game ? Really ? Combat system looks like a back in the time : you tab to select your target and you spam your with your skills. No need to face your mob, no need to move... ho yes, you have to move a bit when your opponent is using a skill (marked on the ground) but dont worry you have something like 3 seconds to set out the zone. Combats are poor, boring, outdated. You see Anarachy Online ?  Yes this game developped and published by Funcom in 2001, combats in Anarchy Online are better...

Solo instances !
Ok, a message to developpers : stop making solo instance, it kills the pleasure and the fun. You play with your friends and the quest you are on suddenly switch to a solo instance... Everyone in its own cave, some working better then others then waiting for them to finish, then bored waiting and doing something else. Fun is insta-broken and at the end everyone will play solo.

Quests !
What what ??!! I said the quests are great no ? Yes they are but there is a stupid system that prevent you having more then 4 quests and if you dont have the same quest as your friends you will have to delete some (or them to delete). Some can be put "on hold" but this is annoying. I had to leave some teams just because I didnt want to delete quest I was running on. Another fun prevention.

The things I fear.

Funcom !
Haa the MAJOR thing is the name of the developpers : FUNCOM. Well, they are known to release unfinished products (AO, SL & AOC, just remember) that they "finish" during the 1st months of exploitation. In other words : players are paying for the developpement.
This beta event, even marketed, was still a BETA so i admit the huge amount of problems I encoutered, this is not related to Funcom, such probs are common in preview versions. BUT, if I have the same problems in the upcoming open beta you can be sure I wont buy this game.
Hey dont get wrong : I highly appreciate Funcom, it's one of the companies that DARE to create game that are not clones of others but I am not blind. Funcom please makes me look ridiculous and release a well-polished product for once.

Item shop ?
Hooo another thing I fear : the item shop. Then, you pay to buy the game, you pay every month to access the game and you pay for the cosmetics. This is very bad. Item shop is ok on old Pay to Play games to  sustain the revenue but on a fresh one it's just a bad joke. GW2 and PSO2 are waiting for me and no, I wont have probs to use item shop in those games as there are no monthly paiement.

My final point of view.

No doubt TSW is a good game more than good, it is interesting (you know my love for "games with a story"). I need to see more, I need to know more to have a "final point of view". There was no PVP in this beta event, the quests and zones were locked, I didnt try the craft (you know I am not a crafter-type player), I want to see more about the 3 factions and their influence in game.
I want to see more of it and this is good when I want to see more of a game. 

Yes, yes I've been (and still) busy by a new project code name YATO.

Well, in the meantime, Da Capo III has been released. A little surprise as it's something different from what I expected but no doubt : It's D.C. No opinion nor review for the moment, I need to play it first ( I mean I need to play and FINISH it).
D.C.III is not the only VN released or about to be released so far. There was tons of new game for april and several for may. I post bellow the now classic compilation of upcoming releases by erogetrailers: (I am glad he changed the titles from "Hentai" to "Eroge", good move !!!).

As for me i uploaded some new 5 min gameplay vids :
- Kouyoku no Soleil
- Gunrenka
- Kamigakari Cross Heart!
- AngelGuard
- Ore no Kanojo no Uraomote
- VampireSweetie (yes a game for the girls to change a bit)
- Sakura no Reply
All available on my youtube channel. But if you lazy here are the embed vids : 

Remember, if you need the links, see the left column of this current blog.

This 15th Diablo 3 will be released, this shud be a great date in PC gaming history but it is not. Like everyone on earth I played the stress test and I didnt see anything as great as Diablo 2. In fact, Diablo 3 is a simplified version of Diablo 2 with cartoonish graphics and I expected more, way more.
Ok, ok, I recon this stress test was ultra short (a couple of hours worth playing) maybe too short to picture that game. I wont spend 60 bux in that, there will be a demo on something later on, then I'll see. Blizzard games dont vanish that fast.

Speaking of "vanish", it seems that Star Wars : The Old Republic (SWTOR) has some problems with vanishing customers. No surprizes for a "just average" game, EA/Bioware can pay all street teams they want (people you pay to post in forums/site comments to how good is your product and bash the competitors.... 5 yuan guys system means to be viral), gamers are not THAT stupid  : they wont pay for something that dont deserve a monthly fee.

In particular when you have Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 coming, I haven't played Guild Wars 2 yet so I wont open my big mouth. But the hype around this game is amazing, I hope this wont end like SWTOR....

Well well, I am acutally waiting for The Secret World beta to start, I am curious to see that game because it seems (I reapet : IT SEEMS !) to be different from the usual wow-clone dev use to built for now years. 
At the same time, Path of Exile launch the 1st public beta, aaaaaah how stupid they are !!! i wanted to try this one but I will play The Secret World instead (sorry but this is not clever). Guys at Arena Net are wayyyyy smarter as they have postponed beta event to this monday just when The Secret World beta ends.

Today I'll speak about a Visual Novel, a true, real and deep one : NOeSIS.
It's an amateur work created by Classic:Chocolat - Cutlass. This is not a new game (nov 2011) but it happens that I play it actually. I couldn't find infos at VNDB so I'll investigate to find more.
NOeSIS is available for Windows, Android and iOS, I, personally, started to play on the Android version (works fine on Android 4) then switched to Windows... reason ? It's a 15 hours worth playing game hehe I wont spend so much time on my phone, PC is more comfortable by far.

So what's it about ?
You play Shigure, a bored high schooler who's living with his sister (the imouto character) while his parents are away for some reason and he spends his time with Koyomi (the childhood friend character also family friend). You will meet a weird dark haired girl at the school roof (the senpai character), she wont stop speaking about death and suicide in a moment where strange things are happening : every week one person dies and this started 5 weeks ago. Rumours are spreading, some speaks about murders, things are getting bad around you. 

As I said the game is available on 3 systems (I captured the screenshot above from the android version while the 1st screen on this page is from the Windows version), it's all free and you can grab the version you prefer of the official website. Notice that the game is not voiced, it's all ages (no ero in it) and it's japanese only (for the language) but who knows ? maybe someone will start an english translation, this would be a great idea !

Well, this is not a review, just a short introduction to the game. I tried to avoid spoiler (there are more things to see/characters to meet) , in addition I am currently playing it and it'd be ridiculous from me to write a review.
I repost here the links :
- http://cutlass.qee.jp/noesis/index.html.
- http://cutlass.qee.jp.

Finally this is my Everquest article !

I said, last time, "Everquest is the source of all actual MMORPGs", what the hell does this mean ?
Everquest is not the 1st MMO, it's not the one who created everything, it's not the most famous, it's just the one who normalized (reduce to a norm or standard) the rules of games we are playing. All these little things we found now normal weren't when Everquest was released.
Ok, it's now 13 years with 18 add-on (18 !!!) and that game changed so much that it'd be impossible to list all modifications done but it still have that "magic" he used to spread (spreading magic huh ?!).

All SOE games are now Free to Play (Vanguard will switch to that model this summer)... according to the SOE definition : it is a game where you are free to login, create a character and having fun untill it's too hard because of the huge limitations to the free accounts.
This link shows the 3 account types, it is similar to EQ2 with Free, Silver and Gold. Except that SOE made something incredible : they have rewarded the old players ! Woooo must be the 1st time such thing happens.
As you can see in the table, Free players can only play 4 races (Human, Erudite, Barbarian and Gnome) and 4 classes (Warrior, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue). But if you had characters before the game went Free to Play, those characters are still playable (2 char max). For this reason (I have an account with 2 ultra low level toons) I can play a High-Elf Magician and a Dark Elf Necromancer, great as those pet owners are my favorites !
Too bad I cant remember my old EQ main account, well it's been 8 years since my last login. Anyway.

You wonder if this venerable game is worth playing ?
My answer is YES !
As soon as you accept few things :
- the engine has been revamped but it still looks old, some zone looks made of squares. You must love vintage style.
- EQ is a MMORPG where Multiplayer and Role Playing Game mean something. There are rules, sometimes annoying, this not an action game : it is slow. You've been warned.
- For old players : the game is no longer hard, long and sometimes boring. The meditation is now faster (it was a real pain to spend hours sit down on the floor and doing nothing out of playing /gems) Xp gain is improved too, there is an hot zone system with places where to gain levels very fast - for lazy players hahaha (j/k).
- Community is excellent, something I miss in actual games : no lolerz, no spammers, no childish players. Maybe the game is way to complex for them.

Notice that players always help each others, it is very common to see a high level player come to help the little ones : giving free buffs or killing train that you created. See this pic above ?
It's a player far higher then me, he is buffing me. The scene happens just after I created a little train by adds I got during my fight. I was running to zone (classic way to get rid of a train) and he came to help me by killing the mobs and saved my ass. As I said, this is a common way to act.

I wont write a review of Everquest (nonsense) but give some help to those want to try it for the very 1st time.

- Gameplay wont be a problem, as I said you already know the basics since EQ is the source.
- There are several usefull commands to know but the one nobody speaks about is /open which is used to open chests ! See your action menu at the bottom ? right click once on an empty box and choose "open" then add this shortcut somewhere in your shortcut bar. You can do the same for all commands.
- Once you ding (gain a level), go see a spell merchant. Buy spells ONE by ONE (it comes by pack of 20, one is enough !) then click on the little book at the bottom bellow your spell bar (or click on "spells" in your shortcut. Then open your inventory ("i" key) , take the spells one by one and write it to your book. Wait the time for the spell to be written and then add it to your spell bar.
You can memorise only 8 spells so choose wisely. You can remove/add spells anytime as soon as you not in combat.
- Some spells requires components you can buy at merchants or find in loot. For the Necro, the bone chip (required to create your pet) can be found in any kind of skeleton and there are skeletons everywhere.
- You lose XP when you die, you can even lose a level ! This can be annoying : imagine you are level 20 and you are downgraded to 19 you can not cast all level 20 spells you've learnt previously... tooo bad you'll have to gain your level back !
- Do not rush into mobs : they are stronger than in other MMOs. Usual fight is 1 vs 1 or group vs 1 bigger, so take them one by one and try to pull the mob in a safe place.

-  to engage a chat with a NPC, select him and hit the "h" key. Read what he has to say and reply him by the keywords he used in his conversation, these keywords are easy to identify, example   :
NPC said : Do you want a [quest] ?
Then you reply "quest" in your chat.
This is the way to take quests in EQ. Notice that some quests wont go in your journal, you'll have to remember it and it's not easy. Then, use the minus "-" key to take a screenshot (see example bellow of a quest with no tracking).

- Do not  be shy and ask other players if there is something you dont understand. You may also ask for some buffs but you'd better not beg around for plat or gear. Keep your ooc channel open : there are often free buffs announcement made by players.
- You'll start your adventure in a special newbie zone. Stay there untill level 10, then get out and go make the Cresent Reach quests. Those are easy and rewarding.
As you in Cresent Reach, go hire a Mercenary (at the same place where all trainers are). Mercenary are usefull at low levels, it cost a bit per 15 min ACTIVE but it worth the price (desactivate the Mercenary when you dont hunt mobs, no need to pay for nothing).
- Go to Plane of Knowledge (PoK) asap ! From Cresent Reach : go outside the city, follow the trail in front of you and zone to Blightfire Moors. Once there follow the right moutain untill you find a book stands in on a pedestal. Click on the book and you will be TP to PoK. Plane of Knowledge is the subway of Everquest : the central place where to reach all major places in EQ. It's a good idea to well-know this place.
- If you want to get back to the newbie zone and finish your quests inthere, do it before you hit 16. You can tp using the spell "gate" or just die (it's faster waha) if you havent bind elsewhere.
Notice if you die past 15 and you havent bind elsewhere then that noob zone, the game will crash (nice bug hehe).
- Ho yes I forgot the con ! The color of the mobs is not written in their name above their head, you have to hit the "c" key and read carefully what's written. Sometimes a blue mob (one level bellow you) can be tough.
- If you low on mana, just open your spellbook and wait. You will see your meditation skill rising. The higher it is, the faster you will regen mana. It is very slow at low level but dont worry it's fast later.
- Try to use your skills all the time : the more you use the higher it goes (with a cap by level).
- There are no maps in Everquest, it's a good idea to go download the maps pack at mapfiend. Once downloaded, unzip the files into your maps subdirectory of your installation of Everquest. No need to backup the old ones, they are useless.

Woaaa That's a lot of text ! Everquest is not a big game, it is HUGE ! It will take you some times to explore all places and you dont need to hurry ! I advice you to start the Armor Quest at  PoK as soon as possible (grab it from the "Armor Quest" guy in front of the Cresent reach portal in PoK). This quest is good not just because of armor part, it will also make you run all around Norrath, visiting several places includiing cities and dungeons. It's a good quest if you love adventures.
Ho and if you're like me and play a Dark Elf Necro, be ready to have no friends hahaha Dark Elves are KoS almost everywhere and doing this quest with this race is fun s you need to avoid all guards and NPCs (feign death is good).