Allods Online: Skies of Arcadia with undead Terminators in space

Yeah, yeah, another free-to-play MMO. We know. They’re about as rare as oxygen these days. ButAllods Onlineis worth paying attention to well beyond the draw of its non-existent price tag. Why? All kinds of awesome, including mecha-zombies, spaceship battles and strippers. Read on, and we'll tell you exactly why it's raised the collective Radar eyebrow.

Astral Ships

This is the biggie. Although it looks to be a classy, fully-featured, and downright beautiful MMO to start with – seriously, we’ve rarely seen a free-to-play game with such impressive production values – at higher levels you’ll gain the ability to build your own Astral Ship and get off terra firma. Requiring five players to crew, these space-faring galleons open up a whole new area and set of mechanics for the game, allowing you to explore far-off space islands, find new quests, fight colossal AstralDemons (somewill require a fleet ofmultiple ships totake down)and discover new items and elements of the overall story.

It%26rsquo;s Skies of Arcadia: The MMO

Well, not really. But fans of Sega’s brilliant Dreamcast sky pirate RPG will feel right at home. Aside from opening up the Astral section of the game, Allods’ ships are completely functional. They’re fully-armed, allowing ship vs. ship PVP, and it’s even possible for crews to ambush other ships and board them, which opens up a fierce battle to reach or defend the victim ship'streasure hold. And during combat you can deploy a support crew of robo-goblins to micromanage the maintenance of the ship. Yes. Robo-goblins. Games need more of those. As does life in general.

It has a mecha-zombie race

What, you actually need to know more than that? Okay then. The Arisen is possibly the creepiest and coolest MMO race we’ve ever seen. A once-dead people, they’ve resurrected themselves with mechanical body parts and have transcended their mindless zombie roots to become a cold and detached intellectual elite. They might be a bit stinky on the inside, but their magic and technology makes them serious business. Plus, they look awesome.

You can fight with three characters at the same time

If you create a Gibberling character, that is. Which you’ be a fool not to, because they’re brilliant. Essentially sea-faring Ewoks, Gibberlings are usually born as triplets and rarely stray from their siblings. Thus a Gibberling character is actually a pack (or “sprout” to use the official terminology) that moves, emotes and attacks as a group, comboing hits between all three in combat. They’re fast, can specialise in Brawler, Trickster, Seer and animal training classes, and despite their size are absolutely hard as nails. Imaginestabbing someoneupusing three teddy bears in Viking armour. Humiliating for them, hilarious for you.

The female elves were mo-capped by strippers

Who needs armour anyway?

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David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.