City Of Steam

City Of Steam is a free Browser-based MMORPG powered by Unity3D, which also supports Games like Battlestar Galactica Online, Tiger Woods Online, Star Trek – Infinite Space and etc. Players must download and install a web player before getting started on the gaming on web browsers like IE, Firefox, and Chrome.

Developed by China-based Mechanist Games, City Of Steam is expected to appear for English-speaking players later this year. According to a person familiar with this project, the International version of City Of Steam is being translated and tested. Thus far, only an English teaser website has been launched.

Set in the industrial age,  the game should come as surprise to fans of browser games since it will feature a perfect mix of fantasy, Sci-fi, RPG, and hack n ‘slash gameplay.  It will also deliver a fast-paced combat, and weapon and equipment enhancement system in which players are able to craft and customize their items.

Combat and fighting take on real-time and turn-based mode. Usually, players are in the exploration mode and once encountering enemies or hostile creatures, both of them will enter the fighting mode to prepare for the battle. This mode reminds me of those Chinese 2D turn-based MMORPG. It, however, does not focus on fast-paced gaming while just bringing slow-paced action MMO into browser.

Graphically, City of Steam makers seem to have spent little attention judging from the ingame screenshots, but the concept artworks look awesome. The graphics indeed give a lot of recall about Perfect World’s Forsaken World.

Review:

City of Steam brings people to the most dangerous adventures into tens of forgotten regions around the central city. With the same rusty colors prevailing in the game, each region has its unique monsters that generate a unique atmosphere. These regions may have many gates, but you won’t get out without collecting keys through a correct means. If you don’t accept quests in an expected sequence, you will break into these hells unknowingly and lose yourself therein until an open door is found among its numerous gates. And this blind intrusion is not related to any XP or level enhancement, only costing all of your potions.

This is a 3D game operated on browser, so inevitably there are some disconnected moments. But generally, the game runs itself pretty steadily, leaving you no time to scan the explanation texts at the entrance of a dungeon. The whole gaming world is a grand system of brickwork, woodwork and stonework, but most of the objects are air-slake in a comfortable way. Besides tigers, bears, apes and wild dogs, some of the monsters are both dirty and mysterious, like rats, ash worms, water worms, potato ladybird. As a contrast, bad humans among these evil creatures are sensuously beautiful; the tiny amount of shillings earned is a pile of happily shinning colors, even the battling noise rings pleasantly to the ear.

Tutorial of the game is cool, but the most basic things about getting quest, using map and managing your weapon, armor, ability is not included. You follow the instructions of the guide on a running train. Each passage contains some quest that may reward you a key to unlock the next passage, which indicates what a smooth sense of progression you will experience. You are taught to fight, to switch stances, to crash breakable boxes for loot. Getting off the train, you reach central city.

Central city is a complicated map with too many branches to be included in a complete map, as you often need to see one part clearly. Traveling freely, you can notice how many red arrows are forbidding your footsteps. The minimap, also the only map available, is a transparent block on the top left, very convenient for path choosing. But the numerous identical red arrows are not named, nor are the gates of a dungeon numbered, which only flash as gate 1, Gate 2 when you are nearby. That’s why I repeat choosing a wrong gate as well as enter the same dungeon again and again whenever the golden question mark isn’t shown in time.

These dungeons are not so terribly difficult as you imagine. Skeletons in a dungeon take only one stroke to fall down. Offensive monsters always surround you and the real time battle mode requires you to target manually and click nonstop. However, you are given enough initial power to deal with these gangs. Beating one by one won’t end up with you dying first. It’s the first time I feel not so panic when besieged in a locked space. However, there are more difficult quests to task you to worse things in a same dungeon, for example, on a different floor, a different part, where nearby players can be an indispensable helper.

Interface of the game is simplified. Only two things are ruling the game, money and XP. Other performances like purchase and equipping are more efficient. Each time you visit a shop, the shop and your bag are simultaneously opened on both sides of the interface. Also each time you click character, the bag is shown. You draw the wanted items from shop to your bag or from your bag to your character. But you can’t equip a newly earned item with your weapons drawn out and this game won’t flash when a useful item is collected or a new skill is ready to upgrade.

Silent as it is, City of Steam lets you run fast, at a speed that makes you dizzy. Yes, you run fast, kill fast, trade fast, no pets, mounts to care about, no reputation, achievement and other such concepts to mess up your head. With a fair use of map to enter the right quest-dungeon for the right keys, you can go on fast and steady. Without the right keys, you are a fool.

Features:

Time Bar: Each players are equipped with a time bar with which they can launch the battle one it is fully replenished. Upon the completion of filling up “Time”, players are able to boss and command their characters. Each action will consume some time point accordingly.

Combat skills: Strategically, players could use the skills to slay monsters and PK other players. But the skills must be learned under the skill trees.

Diverse creatures: Stalker, Brute, Tank, Harrier, Overlord, Tactician, Patron, and Thrall.

Ten classes: Arcanist, Bard, Berserker, Channeler, Explorer, Gunner, Mechanist, Necrolyte, Rogue, and Warder.

Five dominant races: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Greenskins and Halflings.