TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

By Danny "Ralsu" Gourley

Environments in NeoSteam range from colorful and happy to dark and still.

Character Creation
NeoSteam features four races: Human, Elf, Pom, and Luife. Elves and Luife come in slightly different flavors signifying continental origins. Each race has inherent traits that distinguish them from the others by more than appearance. Humans gain resistance against sleep effects and the ability to steal items. Elves are resistant to poison and become harder to detect by aggressive monsters. Poms, the small furry creatures from the trailer, are naturally resistant to root effects and are adept with items at lower than normal levels. Finally, Luife are a beast race that is resistant to slow effects and has increased movement speed. I chose and elf and found I could only be female.

The initial selection of a class involves picking from basic options: Fighter, Mage, Rogue, and Craftor. At some point, each of these jobs split into two different options for specialization. True to form, I chose a mage. My later options could be Rune Caster or God Caller. Rune Casters use buffs and debuffs to direct the tide of battle while God Callers summon being to fight for them. Craftors can make weapons and machinery. I did not get a chance to test one in battle.

Airships are a common mode of transportation in the world of NeoSteam.

The First Quest
An encouraging sign about NeoSteam is that it has a tutorial to get things started. I was instructed to right-click the non-player character (NPC) near me to start a conversation. That NPC told me some basics of the user interface and controls. She also gave me my first quest, which was to kill a handful of spiders outside town.

I was able to move around with WASD movements, and the interface seemed pretty clean and user-friendly. I went to the nearby forest and started hunting spiders with my basic fire spell. The graphics were good. They don't rival the latest pay-to-play games, but the beat a good number of free-to-play games on the market. Attack animations were pretty fluid, and the spell graphics for my fire spell were cool, too.

I saw a few other players roaming around hunting spiders like me, but I never formed a team for this introductory quest. After killing the correct number, I headed back to my NPC to get further directions. She was ready to send me to the next NPC and further the tutorial, but I needed to stop playing. The CBT ended that night, and I did not get a chance to play again.

Parting Thoughts
My brief glimpse of NeoSteam was positive. The game did a few things right; the graphics were better than average, the in-game tutorial seems helpful, and interface is smooth. I was actually disappointed when I found out I could not play the next day. That's a good sign. The only early complaints I have are that too many actions seem tied to the right-click command, and the translation was imperfect. The translation wasn't a mess like in other games I have played. I could still understand every sentence, but some things were just unpolished. I'll want to investigate more. I did not get a chance to play the second CBT because I was out of town, but Ten Ton Hammer's Morvelaira did play it. Look for a hands-on preview from her soon.

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