Richard Garriott has never been one to lay low in the gaming scene, and he highlights this reputation for stand-out work with his latest addition to the industry: the eponymously titled Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa. While the naming of the game has caused for some speculation and smirks, one cannot deny that it is a well-executed project in reality. The first clue you get that this is a top-shelf game is the introduction video. A beautifully-rendered mini movie detailing the story, which comes off as a Resident Evil meets War of the Worlds hybrid, informs you that the world has been attacked by a violent alien race, but that you and a select group of humans have been rescued and trained into an elite fighting force to defend humankind. “We thought we were alone. We felt secure in our future. Little did we know that we would end up being plunged into an intergalactic war that has been raging for millennia.”

It turns out that a highly advanced alien civilization known as the Eloh compiled a work of science that unified all theories of physics and used this development to create Logos, which gave them mystical abilities to manipulate matter, energy, and force. They went from race to race sharing this information and generally spreading the love. Some races weren’t advanced enough to handle Logos, and were instead given seeds of knowledge and were watched by the Eloh until they were mature enough to deal with the good stuff. Then they met the folks on planet Thraxis. The Thrax are described as “a warlike, xenophobic species,” though highly advanced and intelligent, and they milk the Eloh for all the knowledge they can before dealing a huge blow to them in a struggle for domination. Some Eloh decided to forgive and forget while others formed a new faction called the Neph, and they thought that they should keep all the knowledge to themselves from then on. Eventually the Neph joined the Thrax while the Eloh continued to watch over immature races such as the ones on a little planet called Earth. The bad guys attacked Earth and plundered all its resources (in a mere five days!) and the Eloh were left to pick up the pieces with the Earthlings. A select few survivors were moved to neighboring planets and trained in combat. Thanks to the Eloh, they had an added bonus of Logos, which gave them power along the same lines as the greater race of beings. They joined with sympathetic alien nations to make The Army of the Allied Free Sentients. And that, my friends, is the story of Tabula Rasa. Did you catch all that? No? Yeah, I got a little lost myself.

So the story is a little, how should we say, involved. It would read better as a seven-part series of serious science fiction novels rather than the backstory of a game, but if you want to turn a frown upside down you could see it as another mark of the care and detail that went into this game. This is someone’s baby, folks, and it definitely shows. When you enter the game you pick your server and then build your character. The standard choices of male or female and the accompanying features and accessories make you think you have a lot to say in the finalization of your character, but really what you end up with is a fairly buff androgynous character in lumpy army gear (the female versions show a little tummy and cleavage, to denote girlishness) and all characters are invariably short-haired and heavily padded for combat. There is a cool little feature that allows you to choose the color of your starting clothing, as well as hair and skin tone, but that changes as you equip items in-game. You choose your name as well as a surname that will be applicable to all the characters created by you, which is different, though I’m not sure how integral to actual quality of game play.