Earth & Beyond

"Interesting game, has potential"

Introduction
Earth and Beyond is a pretty interesting game with quite a few goof things going for it. It's pretty fun to play, although it is arguable whether or not it's worth the $10.99 to $12.99 a month to play it.

Graphics: 10/10
This is where Earth and Beyond really shines. The graphics are very nicely done, with great particle effects and realistic-looking ships, characters, and objects.

Sound: 7/10
It's not bad. You hardly notice that there's any music playing, except for at certain times. The ambient soundtrack changes depending on what type of situation you're in (the music changes if there is a difficult enemy nearby or if you see something out of the ordinary), and the sound effects get the job done, but there's nothing incredibly spectacular or revolutionary here.

Gameplay: 7/10
Your ship has an intuitive control, and after a very short amount of time you can pilot like a pro. The same goes for moving your character inside starbases. There are a few problems here, though. Depending on the type of modem you have, you may find your ship moving erratically at times (spinning out of control, moving at an odd angle [pointing vertically while moving horizontally]). In addition, the game can get pretty laggy if there are a lot of other players in your galaxy (if you here an announcement saying that something important is in your sector, do the bright thing; run), but that is understandable. Another problem of mine is the combat system. It gets pretty repetitive, and after a while you may find yourself running from enemies not because they're too strong, but because you don't want to get into another boring and repetitive fight. Aside from that, the game does a nice job of keeping the areas populated with enemies and things to do, and everything for the most part works; it's pretty hard to get thousands of people together online and make the whole thing work and be balanced, but Westwood seems to have done it.

Storyline: 6/10
There is a decent storyline that carries your character up to a certain level, but then it all sort of falls apart, leaving you to do boring, repetitive, and monotonous leveling up. There is potential, though, as Westwood may very well add more to the story in later patches, renewing the life of this MMORPG. That fact saved the score in this category, and as long as Westwood sticks with this game, it should remain pretty fun to play.

Concept: 9/10
Create an MMORPG that doesn't involve swords and sorcery. This is a refreshing change from traditional games of this type; the concept is great.

Replay Value: 8/10
As I said before, things start to get a little boring after you reach a certain level, but the game can still be fun. In addition, as long as Westwood does its part, the plot should be ever-evolving, and the game could very well become exciting. This category is hard to rate, then, as it all depends on whether or not Westwood sticks with it, something that it hasn't been too well-known for doing with its previous (offline) games.

Total: 47/60 = 7.8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/03, Updated 01/01/03