‘Secret’ welcome change

“The Secret World’s” most ground-breaking missions, called investigations, can also be its most frustrating. These quests require players to put on their thinking caps and use resources outside the game to solve puzzles and advance plot lines.

In one quest, the coordinates of a key location my friend and I had to visit were being transmitted in Morse code. I know Morse code well enough to recognize it, but it would take me a half-hour to decipher the most basic sentence, even with a key right in front of me. But then my similarly Morse-challenged friend suggested using a smartphone app to decode the radio message. I hit the Google Play store, had a free app on my phone within minutes and we were off to the destination, feeling like modern Sherlock Holmeses.

That solution led to a discussion between my friend and I as to whether we’d “cheated,” but what makes that puzzle great was that “The Secret World,” with its modern setting, encourages players to “cheat” in this way. After all, my character has a smart phone that she could use to download an app to help her parse Morse code? Why shouldn’t I use that tool, as well?

Missions that steer players to look up facts or quotations on Google stumble slightly. For example, Googling the name of a fictional character to find biographical information on a fake website created by Funcom will also show you tons of links to gaming forums in which players divulge the answers to the puzzle. It’s frustrating to accidentally blunder across a solution when you’re trying to solve it the right way.

“The Secret World” runs into other issues. Though the writing is sharp, the setting original and the puzzles brainy, the game, which launched in early July, still contains plenty of bugs. Its combat is fairly basic, which will appeal to one set of players while alienating another. Its graphics and character customization options aren’t going to win any awards.

But the game’s unusual yet familiar setting, sharp writing and attempts at innovation make it appealing to anyone interested in the evolution of MMOs or solving mysteries.

“The Secret World,” rated M, costs $50 for PC, which includes one month of subscription time. Subsequent months cost $15. For this review, I played a downloadable copy of the game for about 20 hours and was provided with one free month of subscription time. I’ll be renewing my subscription when it expires after a month, but am still unsure of its long-term staying power.

Eric Wittmershaus is The Press Democrat’s online sports editor. His column appears the first Friday of each month. Follow at twitter.com/gamewit.