Otherland

by Aethyna Sep 21, 2016 | 1 Votes | 1 Played | 0 Reviews

8 rate

Genres:

RPG , MMO

Graphics:

Labels:

Virtual World , Dungeon/ Instance , Guilds , Futuristic Setting , Sci-Fi , Player vs Player (PvP)

Platforms:

Publishers:

Gamigo Based on the highly acclaimed science fiction story of the same name by the renowned Tad Williams, Otherland is a futuristic MMORPG that will definitely tax the very boundaries of your imagination! With a fun gameplay and brilliant worlds to explore, the game is definitely worth the download time. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Based on the highly acclaimed science fiction story of the same name by the renowned Tad Williams, Otherland is a futuristic MMORPG that will definitely tax the very boundaries of your imagination! The game features some impressive and very diverse digital worlds that you can, naturally, explore to your heart’s content, as well as a supposedly action-based combat system. If you’ve always loved MMORPGs with a sci-fi theme, you definitely wouldn’t want to miss out playing Otherland. It’ll be absolutely worth it.

Plotline

Now, the plotline in this game can be quite confusing is you have not read the book of the same name that the game is based on. However, generally, Otherland is a massive digital universe that consists of several breathtaking virtual worlds of vary different themes... a multiverse, so to speak.

The game stayed pretty true to the book’s story where it details the struggle between the owners of the Otherland, the Grail Brotherhood, particularly the mega tycoon known as Felix Jongleur, and the “rebels”, Renie and her friends. Felix, similar to Andrew Ryan of Bioshock, was a brilliant fellow who due to various reasons have descended into a mad attempt to guard his creation and his brotherhood’s secrecy. Renie, on the other hand, is fighting to help the worlds of people break free of Felix’s tyranny.

The conflict is causing Otherland itself and its poor inhabitants to suffer, and this is where you come in. Your main role in the game is to help the rebels in their mission to wrestle control of Otherland from its creators and give them to the people.

Gameplay

Before you could even get into the game, the game forces you to patch your game up, which is pretty common... except that the patching process moves soooo slow. After a full day of patching – and it’s not my connection issue, mind you, the game moved on to the next game patch. It does tests the patience or EQ level of any potential players looking to get into the game.

That being said, once you’ve finally managed to get into the game, Otherland will prove that it’s worth all that time you’ve wasted patching it up. Unlike most MMORPG which starts the game with either a cool cinematic or the character creation process, in Otherland, you simply get to create your character’s name and you’ll be dumped right into the game’s tutorial. Don’t worry though! You’ll get to the whole character customization and class selection part pretty soon.

The tutorial isn’t exactly comprehensive in Otherland. Although being a pro in MMORPGs, you should be able to quickly figure out that the “F” key, for example, allows you to interact with objects and NPCs, and that the Ctrl key allows you to bring up the menu, aside from the usual WASD keys to move, spacebar to jump and mouse movement to turn your character’s head.

Once you’ve done practicing your controls, you’ll get to customize your simuloid’s appearance. There aren’t a lot of customization options available. Besides gender, you could change the “energy pattern”, which refers to the pattern on your body suit; “energy color” the color of those patterns on your body suit; and skin color, which basically means the color of your body suit. You’ll probably and rather quickly notice that the body suit concept and the various patterns provided remind you of the popular sci-fi movie, Tron... and honestly, you would be quite right.

After customization, you’ll be brought over to the class tryouts section. Here, you can go through various class portals to try each of the classes out. There are 4 classes in total in Otherland, namely the broadsword-wielding Warrior, the stabby Assassin, the bow-and-gun proficient Marksman, and the only healing class in the game who wields a pretty cool channeled, healing gun, the Energizer.

Although you can always create a new character if you happen to dislike the one you’ve chosen, it’s still advisable to try and pick a class that you really like the feel of. If not, you’ll definitely have a pretty hard time enjoying the game. This is mainly because different classes have their own sets of abilities, including a basic attack skill and a charged attack that can be activated by your left and right mouse buttons respectively, and will require different playstyles.

Questing and doing combat are, like most MMORPGs, the main aspects in Otherland. Questing in this game consists of the usual stuff – fetching quests, killing quests and so on. However, it’s worth noting that this game does have a particularly large number of “talking to NPCs”-type of quest. In fact, you’ll often find yourself being bounced between multiple NPCs within the region. Admittedly, it can get quite dull after some time.

Quests are all grouped into a quest log that has a helpful compass on side. The compass functions to guide you to the quest location by showing you the general direction you should head to. The game’s level progression can also feel a bit slow since new players are not given free boosts to help them along.

The combat system, on the other hand, is quite unique I’d say. Despite being touted as an “action-based combat” game, Otherland’s combat system feels a lot like a merge between the basic hack-and-slash and action-based combat. You are required to actually aim your weapon to attack an enemy – Absolutely no tab-targeting allowed. However, unlike most action-based games, Otherland doesn’t provide you with the ability to dodge, parry or block attacks.

Not to mention, the targeting box in the game seems to glitch out from time to time since you may be required to get all up and close with the mob you’re attacking despite being a ranged class just so you could stop “missing” the stationary creature. It’s also interesting to note that you could swap weapons during combat and can have up to 3 different weapons in your loadout.

Otherland also boasts of having some pretty in-depth and one-of-a-kind crafting system. In this game, every kill you make will allow you to siphon off something called an eDNA from the corpses of the fallen creatures. These eDNA can then be combined to create various items, cosmetics and even clones. Now, what are clones? Clones are like NPC drones that you can assign tasks to. Most of the time though, they are used to guard your home in the game...

...which brings me to my next point – have I mentioned that Otherland provides player housing? Yes, you’ve not heard wrongly! In Otherland, you can actually get yourself a home and decorate it to your liking. However, unlike most games, you can actually attack other player’s houses and this is, in fact, a part of the game’s PvP feature. If you’re not around to defend your home from hostile players, you could station clones to help you do so. This is definitely a feature that helps Otherland to stand out from the other MMORPGs out there.

The best part about Otherland though is its virtual worlds. Each of the worlds you can visit and explore in the game is as breathtaking as you can imagine it to be. It does bring to mind Skyforge’s many beautiful zones. These worlds are not only beautiful though; they are incredibly diverse, ranging from very futuristic and neon-filled cities to medieval or ancient villages.

There’s even a forest-filled world inhabited by gigantic insects – a world that will definitely cause players with insect-related phobias to get goosebumps! In fact, I dare say most players mainly stuck around with the game simply just to be able to feast their eyes on the beauty the next world has to offer. Even the supposedly dark and dull worlds have their own charming side that players, who love great virtual environments, would adore.

Being a free-to-play game, Otherland do provide an in-game store which is stocked with various items that you can then buy using credits (premium cash). However, the game’s not at all pay-to-win. Most of the stuff available in the shop are rare cosmetics and consumables that can help you advance your simuloid a little bit faster than the rest of the flock of players.

Community

Since the game’s more appealing to certain types of MMO players, the community in Otherland can be considered as pretty small. However, if you’re looking for a group, you should have too much difficulty finding one on the fly. That being said, you might want to sign up and join a clan in Otherland as soon as you can. If you managed to get into a good one, you shouldn’t need to worry about finding enough players to run a dungeon.

Graphics/ Sound

Being a game that’s filled with multiple virtual worlds, Otherland does its graphics justice by showing players how well they could beautify variously themed worlds, from the thick canopies of the forest biome to a futuristic city complete with hover-cars, psychedelic colors and neon lights. However, I do want to point out that the jumping animation does make your character look absolutely silly.

In terms of sound, the game features some pretty okay tech vibe for its soundtracks, which perfectly suit the game’s sci-fi theme. However, unless you have an insatiable liking for techno-styled music, you might want to turn it down a notch.

Conclusion

Otherland is something of an acquired taste-type of game I’d say. It can be quite hard to keep up with the game’s storyline if you have not read a word of the book this game is based on. Although the graphics of the game is most certainly impressive to say the least and that the diverse worlds do keep players interested, the game’s gameplay may feel a bit lackluster due to the generic questing and frequent combat glitches. If you are the sort of player who loves exploring new worlds or that you’re simply a huge fan of the book, Otherland is definitely a game you mustn’t miss. If not, it’s still worth it to give the game a shot, but to stay, well, that’s another matter.