The Dust 514 release date is today, so if you have a PS3, you can download the game and play right now. Dust 514 is a first person shooter and is a companion title to the popular PPC MMO EVE Online.
Dust 514 is one of the first games to fully integrate with another title and probably the first to do so with two games from completely different genres. In EVE Online, players pilot an infinitely customizable spaceship and their avatars are themselves infinitely customizable with a variety of implants. Players complete quests and participate in massive intergalactic battles.
While EVE Online is no doubt one of the most fully realized MMO experiences ever created, the game has an infamously high learning curve that many casual gamers simply aren't willing to overcome. Unfortunately, some early Dust 514 reviews suggest that the FPS might suffer from a similar challenge.
IGN's Vince Ingenito has already begun posting his "review in progress" and had this to say about Dust 514:
It's a good thing I like numbers, because Dust 514 has thrown an awful lot of them at me with little regard to whether I was ready or not. See, I'm the guy who's disappointed when a new RPG doesn't have enough stats to interpret, or when its skill tree looks more Charlie Brown Christmas special than Rockefeller Plaza. But even number nerds like me have limits, and while I'm not ready to say that Dust 514 exceeds mine quite yet, it certainly throws a whole lot more at new players than just about any FPS I can think of.
Hopefully, the fact that Dust 514 is free-to-play will help out with its adoption rate, but if CCP was hoping to reach a broader audience with an FPS offering, it might want to reconsider some gameplay mechanics.
