NeoCron

Developed by: Reakktor Published by: CDV (10tacle Studios AG(Neocron 2)) Originally released: 2002 Neocron 2 released: 2004

Brief Overview

From the Neocron website: "By the end of the third millenium, Earth has changed... Global pollution, excessive wars and a perforated atmosphere have turned the planet into an almost lifeless sphere of toxic mud. Radiation is everywhere and most animals have either gone extinct or have mutated into bizarre monstrous creatures.The remnants of mankind seek protection from the desolate, scorched world and gathered behind the protective walls of giant cities. These few mega cities became the last lights of hope, in the darkness of Earth's final dusk...”

Neocron/Neocron 2 is touted as the first cyberpunk MMORPG. It features RPG style character developement and first-person-shooter style action in a 3D world.

Players meet in Neocron
Players meet in neocron

Brief review

Upon entering the game, players choose which faction or corporation their player will represent and which class their character will be. There are four character classes, each with distinct statistical strengths and weaknesses. GenTanks? are the strong warrior types, using heavy weapons and armor. Spies are the technologically sound, yet physically weak class. They're generally the hackers and snipers. Psimonks are Neocron's answer to the Mage class of the fantasy genre. They wield powerful psychic spells, but offer little in the area of strength and weapon mastery. Finally, Private Eyes are the "jack of all trades" class. They're able to do a little of everything, but specialize in nothing.

Neocron features various NPC (non-player character) enemies that players can battle, as well as mission players can run for ingame credits and experience to use towards upgrading their skills and equipment. Much of Neocron's gameplay, though, is geared towards PVP (player vs player) combat. Players team up and battle for their faction's dominance on the streets and in the wastelands of the Neocron world.

Players battle in Neocrons wastelands
Players battle in Neocrons wastelands

Neocron 2

Neocron and Neocron 2 are roughly the same game. Neocron 2 was originally intended as an expension to Neocron, but due to economic and business reasons it was instead released as a seperate title and under a new publisher. Neocron was published by CDV while Neocron 2 was published by 10tacle Studios AG. Neocron 2 offers new areas, like The Dome of York, a graphical upgrade, a redesigned interface, new player character models, and the much awaited Hacknet. Hacknet offered new gameplay elements to the hacker Spies by means of adding an interactive cyberspace where they do battle with AI security programs and even enemy hackers. Much of the original aspects of Neocron's world and gameplay remained the same.

Hacknet in Neocron 2
Hacknet in Neocron 2

External Links

Neocron.com


The original document is available at http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/tiki-index.php?page=NeoCron