An MMO/Shooter/RPG/TV show prequel with massive potential on PC, but is weighed down by clearly being a console port.

User Rating: 7.5 | Defiance PC
Defiance is the latest MMO game from the Developers at Trion Worlds, the creators of the now free to play MMORPG, Rift. It's ambitious, it's fun, it's flawed, and it's ultimately a work in progress. Sooo let's get to it.

One of the most unique things about Defiance is that it's an MMO that had a simultaneous release on 360, PS3, and the PC. No cross platform play though. As a PC gamer, you can absolutely tell that consoles were taken into account with several of the decisions made, and the PC version suffers for it.

The most glaring and problematic of this clearly PC port is in the logistics; specifically, the menu design, and chat function which hinder cooperation. Want to add a fellow gamer as a friend or group? Forget about the simple "right click" on the player "add to group/friend" system, you've become accustomed to in PC MMOs. In Defiance, you must hit "esc" to open up the menu. "Hold space" to open up a wheel of choices, Click on the "social" tab, click on the friends tab, and then type in the players exact name. While this may not seem like a big deal once you get the hang of it. This overly complex system is clearly discouraging lone wolves and strangers from grouping together, because it is not explained in any tutorial or mission. On a console this might be the only way to do things, but on PC it's busy and messy alternative to the more efficient and established status quo.

Now to the chat function... Want to type something into a general chat for trading, grouping, etc. You can't. It doesn't exist. There's only area chat, and developers should have gone a step further and defined it as an "immediate area chat". Again, an incredibly discouraging factor to player interaction and cooperation. I should note that once you invite a player to a group, the VOIP is consistent and functional. Again, this was clearly a decision made with consoles in mind.

However, it should be noted that outside of Arkfalls, the games clear highlight, players rarely cooperate with each other and why should they? The quests can all be completed solo. The game has a self revive system with a short cool down timer. And if you do happen to die, twice quick succession, you simply "extact" from the zone and revive 100 or so yards away with full health at a cost of a meager 120 scrip, the games currency.

I want to finish this review by stating how much fun I'm having playing Defiance. I have literally played Defiance approximately 50 hours over the past 5 days. When all the pieces of the puzzle come together, the game shines very bright. It's just a shame Trion Worlds didn't take a minute to customize certain parts of PC version to....well... fit the PC.