E3 2001 Hands-on: Earth and Beyond

Many of Electronic Arts' online games were being shown behind closed doors at this year's E3, and one of them was Westwood's upcoming massively multiplayer space simulation, Earth and Beyond. The first thing we were shown was the hangar area of a large star base. In these star bases, you can configure your ship, make repairs, or exit your ship entirely and enter the base lounge to socialize with other players. It should be pointed out that while no on-screen avatar was shown in the current build, Westwood plans to add one that you will use to navigate within the lounge and similar areas on the star base.

At its most basic level, Earth and Beyond can be broken down into three distinct types of gameplay--exploration, trade, and combat. Westwood demonstrated exploration by launching a relatively small ship into an area of space that has a wormhole that swirls, fluctuates, and dwarfs just about everything in the surrounding area. Now as an explorer, you have two options--you can either research areas around the wormhole for special items, or you can attempt to travel through it and find out what's on the other side. Explorers can also make good use of Earth and Beyond's main source of long distance transportation: jump gates. Jump gates can be found near star bases and other highly trafficked areas, and they basically transport you from one point to another within a few seconds--traveling the same distance with just your regular engines would take much longer.

The second type of gameplay in Earth and Beyond is trade, which also has a few layers of depth. Obviously, you establish trade relations with other players by simply talking to them and asking whether or not they might be interested in a trade for a certain item. A small avatar appears in the left-hand corner of the screen, next to the chat dialogue box, to discuss the terms of the trade--though it appears that Westwood may still be tweaking this particular feature. Trade becomes a little more interesting when you learn how to refine resources that you have collected while traveling through space. This essentially lets you manufacture unique items using the materials you've found, and this process will actually become the primary source of unique items within Earth and Beyond.

The last type of gameplay is probably the most exciting of the three, especially since Westwood has dedicated itself to giving Earth and Beyond's battles an epic feel. If you take on the role of a soldier, you must constantly be aware of any possible battles that are occurring in the area. One scene in the demonstration shows a large group of ships coming under attack from pirates. It's your duty to fly into that area of space and fight off the pirates. This particular battle looked good, and did a great job of delivering an epic sense of conflict as the player flew around amongst numerous small enemy fighters and large capital ships. In combat, the amount of damage you do to an enemy ship is dependent upon several factors such as shield strength, engines, and the overall quality of the weapons being used. The combat system also takes into account any of the special skills you use such as the hacker ability that lets you hack into an enemy's shields to disrupt the flow of power. If you happen to die in a battle, your ship is set in an incapacitated state and returned to a star base in a state of disrepair. The penalty for death is currently just loss of experience points, but Westwood stresses that you'll never lose levels or abilities after dying.

Earth and Beyond is shaping up to be an impressive massively multiplayer game that features some depth that you may not ordinarily expect from a game of this type. It successfully mixes role-playing with space simulation gameplay, and it's also stunning visually. Planets and capital ships are absolutely enormous; there are plenty of ships on-screen at once during battles; there are also many special visual effects at work. But, without question, some of the most impressive moments occur on planet surfaces such as the one shown during the demonstration that was essentially covered in volcanoes spewing lava and ash. Westwood hopes to have a beta ready this summer, which will be used to find bugs, balance the game, and test whether or not each shard is really capable of supporting 3,000 players at once. Earth and Beyond is currently scheduled for a winter release.