Earth and Beyond, Westwood's new massively multiplayer online space exploration sim, is offering access to a free open public beta for those who either sign up at their site or pre-order the game at any Electronics Boutique, GameStop, Amazon.com, or EA.com stores.
In the game, you can specialize in a number of fields relating to trade, battle, or exploration. Pick from a number of species and ships which all focus in a different area, customize your character and starships areas and colors, and set off into the galaxy to strike your fortune. Joining with other people gives you experience bonuses, help in combat, and increases your ship's skills and armor.
*shrugs* I was one of the very first beta testers for this game, but it sucked so much back in '01 (or was it January..) that I quit after 2 days because you could kill nothing but some dumb rock things. (p2p was yet to be implemented) Think I should give this game another shot? I would be interested to see where it has came from back then.
Well, I haven't killed any "dumb rock things," but I also haven't engaged any people yet (I'm waiting until my combat experience gets a bit higher and I can equip better weapons before I try). So far it's been a lot of drones, but that's mainly due to me recently leaving training and finally be free to explore as I will.
The combat is nowhere near the intense fun of dogfighting in Freespace, but it's nice in its own way of powering weapons and special abilities (the shield weapon rocks). Adjustable speed levels would do wonders for this game, but it seems fine so far. We'll see how it holds up after some more grouping (so far groups for me have been basically to share experience rather then form comrades) and further exploration. Currently, I'm enjoying the customizing and finding new things aspects so far, and I can also be a level-up whore at times (explaining my love for random MMORPGs where you do almost nothing but get stronger).
If you do decide to try it out (while it's still free), take a look for Ikaruga.
This game looks really interesting to me. I've always wanted to play a MMORPG, and I'm definitely going to with Star Wars Galaxies and Worlds of Warcraft, but I would really love to play this one too. The ship-growing aspect sounds really cool, and I'm a Westwood fan, so I might still get this sucker.
Electronic cigarette.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks