By Danny "Ralsu" Gourley



In a world where Neo Steam is the most valuable source of
energy, three
kingdoms have risen for power. These three kingdoms fight an all-out
war to decide who will be the rightful of the neo steam generator.
That's the basic principle behind NeoSteam,
a steampunk massively-multiplayer online game developed by JoyImpact
and being published by Hanbitsoft. NeoSteam just finished its second
Closed Beta Test (CBT), and I had a chance to play with the game just a
little bit to bring you a first impressions preview.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31329"> style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px; height: 150px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/31329/preview">

style="font-style: italic;">NeoSteam features
motorized vehicles powered by neo steam.

The Download and
Installation

Before I had a chance to download and install NeoSteam, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31370">I was busy
giving away CBT keys. Two days into the giveaway, I received
the following email from one of our Premium Members who uses McAfee
Antivirus:

I decided to try the download that night. The style="font-style: italic;">NeoSteam
download process installs an ActiveX plugin into your browser (Firefox
or Internet Explorer--I did not try with any other browser) that acts
as a download manager. This part did not pose a problem, but the
download manager could not begin the download until I disabled my
antivirus. I use Symantec.



The download manager was a nifty
graphical thing; it kept me abreast of my progress and looked like a
computer screen out of a science fiction movie. After about an hour of
downloading the 800MB+ installer, I scanned the installer for
viruses. Everything came up clean, so I installed. Installation was
easy. I chose my install directory, and the installer did all of the
work.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31325"> style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px; height: 160px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/31325/preview">

The graphics in style="font-style: italic;">NeoSteam are better
than those in the average free-to-play game.

After installation, I connected to the server--or tried to connect.
Again, the client seemed to hang up so long as my antivirus was active.
Once Symantec was disabled, the patcher did its thing and I was able to
start the game.



Two weeks since I installed and played the game,
I have not had any problems with viruses, popups, or any other computer
nasty. Still, I think it is important to relate the email I received
from the Premium Member and my own difficulties getting the game to run
with my antivirus enabled. Many gamers will simply not bother to
install a product if they feel it compromises the safety of their
computers, and I feel the person who sent me the email did the smart
and
responsible thing. I suspect that her virus warning was either a false
alarm or the identification of a virus she already had (the nature of
the newwin32 virus is to attach itself to existing files), but it is
worth mentioning to readers.



The Trailer

When NeoSteam
first launched, I went to grab a drink from the kitchen. I came back to
find the
NeoSteam
trailer in
action on my screen. I was fairly impressed. The
trailer, which shows life in a steampunk city and each of the four
races in combat against a giant beast, demonstrates a conscious effort
toward good presentation. Many
developers settle for mid-range or lower graphics in free-to-play
games to cut costs, but the effort behind rendering the style="font-style: italic;">NeoSteam
trailer
gave me hope that the game might just look good. I was so impressed
that I fired up my video editing software and let the trailer play
again so I could record it and post it for Ten Ton Hammer readers to
enjoy.




There's
more to this NeoSteam
preview. Keep reading.