Otherland MMO

One thing most gamers can be certain about is that there are enough fantasy MMOs out there at the moment, especially when it comes to elves, orcs and dwarves. Granted, you can enjoy different gameplay styles and different lores, but it still gets repetitive after a while. Hence, sci-fi universes can be tons of fun under the right circumstances, but the developers need to do a good job when it comes to balancing and world exploration.

Otherland MMO is a sci-fi MMORPG that presents you with a few new ideas and concepts, especially when it comes to game world and the way you interact with it through your character. As you might know, the universe is based on a series of books written by Tad Williams, so it should be familiar to sci-fi fans, at least when it comes to the lore.

You start by creating a character and choosing one of multiple classes to play as, including warrior and assassin. The difference between them are there, but the actual combat is a bit too impersonal for this to matter. Thus, while one class uses ranged weapons most of the time and various skills that put distance between them and the enemy, others are much more efficient from a melee range.

Unfortunately, the game itself is riddled with annoyances and bad design choices, which makes it rather difficult to enjoy yourself. For starters, the gameplay feels very thin and repetitive, which is not what you want from an MMO that should theoretically keep you busy for dozens or even hundreds of hours. There seem to be connectivity problems, because there’s a lot of lag most of the time.

On top of that, the interface is not at all intuitive or helpful, since it’s difficult to understand what everything is and where the essential information is displayed. This keeps you from having fun most of the time, and although you could probably get used to all this after a few hours, it just feels like it’s not worth the effort. Thankfully, at least the graphics are pretty nice, even if the environments are not always engaging.

When it’s all said and done, it’s admirable that Otherland MMO tries to introduce a new universe and accompany it with unique gameplay as well, but it would appear that the experiment did not really succeed. Hence, there are too many gameplay problems for the game to be enjoyable at the moment, and one can only hope that things are going to change in the future, because the story and the lore are worth it.