Editor's Note: We try to avoid regular previews as much as possible on Bitmob, because almost every site does those already and it's unlikely that you guys can get your hands on games early unless you're part of the gaming press. We're making an exception here, though; Neo Steam is a game you probably don't know much about (we didn't, at least), and Derek has logged hours in the closed beta. -Demian 

I had the opportunity to take part in a 2,000-person closed beta for Atlus' first contribution to the saturated free-to-play MMO market, Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent. While I've played several FTP MMOs in the past and none of them ever succeeded in holding my attention for more than a few days, the fact that this game is from Atlus kind of excited me.

Considering that Atlus is developing the game as well as publishing, I expected the experience was going to be totally off the wall. I couldn't have been more wrong; the story is actually kind of cliché. Basic set-up: Long ago, a large catastrophe split the land in two, and all knowledge of technology was lost. Now, steam has been rediscovered and technology is once again on the rise. When the land was split in half, naturally each side started to hate the other. One side prefers magic; the other side is more technology-based. As I said, not Atlus' most original story idea ever.

Once you pick a country, you choose from one of four races available to that country and then one of four classes. I chose to play as a Lupine (basically a werewolf) Machinist. I figured this would be a good way to experience more of what the game has to offer, since the Machinist class has a lot to do with creating items.

Just to get it out of the way now, don't expect a hi-def graphics experience from this game. This is free-to-play and all, but the graphics are more than comparable to others in the subgenre. Perhaps because of the relatively small number of people playing, I also experienced no lag (could very well change when the server load is much higher). I played for about three days and only experienced one crash, which, for an early beta, I found fairly respectable.

The controls are pretty standard fare for an MMO, and outside of a few new shortcut keys to learn anyone who has played a PC game in fairly recent history most likely won't be lost with this one. The menu, skill bar, and inventory systems also hearken back to games like Diablo or even World of WarCraft.

To start off, you're sent on a few tutorial missions to get used to the controls and the environment. From there you can either wander around town to find missions or check out the designated job board, which tells you everyone who needs help. The missions I played were pretty standard fare -- fetch quests and the like -- but none of them were overly taxing. The main story seems to play out with you becoming a mercenary and subsequently joining up with your nation's military.

During my short time in the beta I built my character up to level 18, traveled to a few different areas (the game features three modes of transportation), and created a few items (which seemed to require a ridiculous amount of materials). For something so early on in beta testing the game seems very solid, aside from a few text glitches here and there. I have a pretty good inclination that I'll be back for more once the servers open up again.

[This article also appeared on Nuclear Geek.]