The game takes place way off in the future where humans have gotten a handle on space travel, have colonized their own solar system, and have begun looking into other star systems as possible colonization hot spots. One planet is picked up on their fancy technology for finding stuff that’s really far away and they name it Calypso and send a bunch of robots there to set the place up with settlements and whatnot so humans can survive there. So along come the humans a few years later as part of the Exodus Project to hunker down in their new homes, but when they get there they suddenly forget one of the first laws of sci-fi: Robots go berserk and start killing people. Alas, this all to common mental slip leads to years of war as the humans try and reclaim Calypso and put down the robotic menace. After a while the robots are defeated and more humans come from Earth to re-colonize Calypso, but when they get there it turns out that there are countless radioactive mutants, victims from the war against the robots, who are neither friend nor foe, but would appreciate not being left out of the loop. However, before the human settlers got a chance to figure out just what they’re supposed to do about these freaks a bunch more robots from an automated mining colony out in the middle of nowhere go haywire and start to attack the colony and have far bigger guns making them a far bigger pain in the ass to deal with. This is where the game picks up and players have to create their character and dive in, then figure out what they’ll do in this crazy, mixed up world.

So, what’ll the bright and cheery colony look like? Well, expect the usual environments of forests, cities, grasslands, and so on, but how they grow and change is left entirely in the hands of the players. The other question is what can you do? Who can you be? The answer is pretty abstract because there isn’t a class system in Project Entropia. Instead what your character becomes is an individual who is particularly good at whatever skills you decide to hone in him or her. With 50 skills at ones disposal it leaves a lot of room for movement, as players can enhance combat abilities or magic (called Mind Force in the game) or non-combat abilities. In fact the whole game is skill-based, not experience based. So to improve your character it’s all about practicing the different skills. It should also be noted that characters can only be humans, despite there being all manner of discombobulated radioactive mutants and blood thirst robots lurking about.

And these aforementioned meanies aren’t the only beings that will give you a hard time. There’s plenty of natural wildlife roaming about eager to rough you up, not to mention that the game supports PvP play so legions of "Big, Dumb Jerks" can beat you down and take your stuff. This will definitely be a concern for gamers since the only time you have to actually pay for the game with real money is when you want to buy items, weapons, and the like. That in mind, there are zones in the game where PvP play is forbidden for those who do not like being picked on by Player Killers.

Getting back to the paying real money aspects of Project Entropia, the game is setup so players pay with a credit card so once they are at the item store and are going to plunk down the cash for a bad-assed laser rifle their internet connection becomes secured so no one can grab the vital personal the game you lose everything. Poof! Gone! The only way to prevent this is to buy insurance, again with real money. This loss of all purchased items will most likely make players less inclined to attack other players and steal their gear since they may lose their own goodies if they screw up. The developers have also kept in mind that not necessarily everyone who plays the game will have credit cards, especially kids, so buying stuff won’t be mandatory. Players will be able to still work around Calypso without buying things, through hand-to-hand combat and whatnot. The one big question is how Mind Ark will deal with cheaters, of whom the repercussions of these dishonest gamers actions could be truly weighty since it could result in the unfair theft of an honest gamer’s gear.

Between the open-ended-ness of Project Entropia and it’s quasi-free -to-play-ness the title certainly looks to be quite different. If nothing else it will be a bold experiment in freedom in a MMORPG and money generating in a title.

- Mr. Nash