Project Entropia Review (no fat)

Game Description

In Project Entropia time is money because, believe it or not, this game is actually a currency converter between PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and USD at a ratio of almost 10PED to 1USD.

The game is free to play, but the catch lies in the gameplay. In order to get things started with the least chances of survival, you will need to invest almost a couple of hundreds PED in a basic weapon and armor.

Since you rarely start the game with any money, this means that about 20USD will have to be transferred from your real account to your virtual one. In the end, skilled players could even profit from the game, having the possibility to withdraw their virtual dollars and convert them back to real, US dollars.

Project Entropia - Gameplay

Except for the trading part, which is a rather important side of the game, the general gameplay is nothing out of the ordinary, with more bad parts than good ones. Nevertheless you can change skills whenever you want as the game doesn't force players to settle on one profession.

As opportunities appear, you may change from hunter to craftsman, miner or whatever else you want, without losing your accumulated skills. The PvP elements found in the game have no real purpose and are only optional.

Entering a PvP zone might require some FPS skills since it's all about hunting people. Also some PvP elements can trigger small disputes among the guilds, but overall these elements can be ignored…or taken advantage of, depending on what you are good at.

Project Entropia – the Hunts

Hunting requires at least the basic equipment, made of a gun and some ammo. The idea behind a hunter is very simple: go out there and start shooting at anything wild that comes at you. If there were more than one hunter shooting at something, only the one who dealt the most damage will claim the pray so in some cases the whole hunting business will end up as a waste of ammo, which is very expensive.

Sometimes, even if you managed to claim the dead creature, it won't cover the cost of the used ammo, bringing even more problems. Except for the creatures found around the landscape there are also the robots only wanting to eradicate the human presence. It takes more than a decent weapon to deal with these armed machines.

Project Entropia Mining

Players can mine for energy or minerals and sell the goods to the Trade Terminals or to craftsmen. Mining is skill dependent so a more skillful player will be able to detect minerals or energy located deeper than a beginner.

Project Entropia Crafting

Crafting is also skill dependant. Craftsmen need blueprints and raw material (minerals). Crafting is a step-by-step process and is not as simple as it may appear. Craftsmen have to create each part and component in turn in order to have the pieces needed for the assembly of the finished goods.

For those who just don't want to invest any money into the game, there are a few other options like gathering the “sweat” from the animals for sale, begging for a couple of PEDs, working as a runner for hunters and so on and so forth. Yet, these options won't take you far, making your trip to Calypso a 'dirty' and unfulfilling one.

Project Entropia - Graphics and Sound

Among the pros of this game are both gameplay aspects as well as technical aspects. While the strange techno music seems to be just in tune with the overall atmosphere of the game, the old graphic engine manages to render some pretty good landscapes and animations. Of course there are some weak points, such as shapeless trees that players can actually walk through, but all in all it is an enjoyable game from the graphics point of view.

The menu interface might seem strange to start with, but it offers many useful options. The camera can be switched between first person to third person and from free-move mode to locked mode (where the cursor interacts with the scenery).

The gameplay gives many satisfactions to the team players, while the “lone Wolves” have little chances of getting far. The interaction between players is most useful when it comes to trading: most of the high-tech weapons, advanced blue-prints and quality minerals are not available for buying so players will have to get in touch with each others, and exchange goods, to get anywhere.

The let downs

The technical problems surrounding the game are enough to put many down. Crash-to-desktops, big lag times and even the fact that MindArk has shut off all Visa payments are some of them.

When it comes to gameplay the landscapes are all the same and limit some of the originality and freedom of creativity for players. Some aspects of the economy seem to be against the game and many players suddenly find themselves broke. Features promised by the game developers still haven't been implemented although the game went gold.

Project Entropia 2cents

Project Entropia is certainly addressed to those willing and able to invest time and, more importantly, money into the game. For all others it's a hard struggle for survival with only few chances of getting somewhere. Nevertheless it can be a rewarding game that can even put money back in your wallet if you have what it takes to resist in the Entropia world. The idea behind the game has a lot of potential and many more improvements are expected by the hungry-for-more players world wide.