Earth & Beyond

"A whole lotta somethin missing..."

''Earth and Beyond, the roleplaying galaxy'' is beyond boring at times. While the game has some GREAT features to it, it leaves much to be desired.

Character Creation: From the moment you load up into EnB and begin to create your character, you are greeted with the sweet voice of your assistant. She does a great job setting you up and getting you started on character creation. You choose your class, looks and ship.. which i found extremely fun. Though some classes lacked different ship component designs, that was acceptable as content updates can fix that.

And that is the problem with EnB, content.

Noobin it: As a noob you begin your adventure, luckly unlike other MMORPGS, you dont begin blind to the world. Your interface and features are pointed out to you, and you are able to take care of business effectivly. While the beginning noob quests have you searching for things or killing things, sometimes the NPC's requests aren't always clear, and you often wander the galaxy confused.

Graphics: Great. Top notch. Loved it. Only thing i couldnt stand was the views in formation mode, as they hindered my view (unless i spun it around, which was a pain)...could have zoomed out automatically for me. I LOVE the in cockpit view.

Sound: Great again. Wish i could have radio in my ship though.

What made me take -4 points off of my review of this game is simply that there just isnt enough content. Many players desire the ability to hop out of thier ship and take on an abandoned base mission, while others want more social features. Emotes are stale and boring, while one can't even SIT in the bar. Standing room only i guess. Another gripe is warping, in which you engage your warp drives to travel between two NAV points. At times, this can be tedious.

Combat: OK. could be better. Anarchy online had special attacks one could do, and DAoC had special attacks too, but other than ''spells'' that your ship casts, i never ran into more than just ''engage-weapons-follow-shoot-loot-sell loot''. That reminds me of another thing, the ''spells'' i never felt that these were well incorporated, and that a ship casting spells was odd.

My dream in EnB: Apartments/Rooms for rent in the different space stations, Sitting, more social abilities, A Zoom out in formation mode, out of ship battles, separate properties for clothing (look! theres 50 other guys with the same jacket on! :( ), CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT.

If you're a patient fellow/lady, than wait out EnB for a couple months. With some content patches, it could be a hit. As for now, i think i'll spend my money on something more interesting, like stamps. :)

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/02, Updated 12/13/02