Minimum System Requirements: OS support: Windows9x/2000/XP/2003 32-bit Minimum requirements: Pentium 3-1GHz, 256m RAM, 32MB 3D accelerator VGA card Recommended requirements: Pentium 4-1.7GHz, 512m RAM, 64MB 3D accelerator VGA card (minimum of Nvidia GeForce4Ti), Headset

SCO, or Space Cowboy Online in is Flight sim MMORPG. While not a very common kind of game, this one proved to be spectacular. Since it is an MMORPG, you are required to level up. Once your gear, or vehicle, gets to a certain point, the game becomes much more exciting. First you choose between one of four gears; the I-Gear (interceptor, high speed/attack/dodge with little defense and best gear for nubs), B-Gear (bomber, very powerful at higher levels, not recommended for beginners), A-Gear (literally a flying tank, high defense, slow, with long range attack), and the M-Gear (medical gear, provides buffs, teleportation, and all that good stuff).You start as a newbie pilot for BCU (the imperialist-like nation), and start off with some basic quests which bring you to level 10. At level 11, you must choose between one of two nations; stick with BCU (the imperialists), or become a rebel with the ANI. This is where the real fun begins. Once you make your decision, you should start grinding (or leveling) until about level 30 (these levels are easy to get in a matter of 2 days or less). You may choose to start your own brigade (or guild/clan) at level 20. After level 30, grinding begins to slow down, and becomes very repetitive. But to liven things up, there are nation wars, which is basically an ongoing struggle between the two nations (ANI and BCU).You can also duel people from your own nation for fun. At any time after level 30 or so you can fly towards enemy territory looking for battle with other real-life people. Also at level 30, you gain acces to the “ment” feature, which you can find out more on the official SCO forums. When either nation gets so many kills, or “marks,” then the mothership is spawned. It is then your job to either protect or defend your mothership. If the mothership is “downed,” or destroyed, then the nation that killed it gets some minor bonuses for a short time (two weeks or so I think). After this, its pretty much just more leveling and nation wars..........

Graphics

There are multiple settings for graphics and screen resolutions, so it is fully customizable. For performance choose a low screen resolution, and either medium or low quality (such as 800x600). If you set the quality to high, there are some small increases in making the graphic look better (animations, floating arrows, ect....)

Sound

This game incorporates a built in mp3 player, so that you may play your own mp3s. While excellent in theory, it can be annoying to have to change your track from “Amazing Grace” to “Mortal Kombat” when a battle starts. This feature, along with the built-in VoIP software tend to be buggy. Overall, sound quality is above average. To add you mp3's just copy them to the “Music” folder of your SCO directory.

Stability and Interface

While the game was almost unusable upon launch, many of the bugs and exploits have been worked out. There are regular updates, but they usually do more good than bad. The interface is rather weak, but actual gameplay more than makes up for this.

Appropriateness

I found absolutely nothing to do with the occult in this. It is pure Sci-Fi. No racism or prejudiced that i could find (except against the opposing nation), although as of yet there are only “white” characters. Some of the girls can be a little revealing, but nothing i wouldn\'t consider inappropriate for general audiences.

Final Ratings

Violence: 7 Launguage: 8 Sex: 8.5 Occult: 10 C/M/E: 6 Gameplay: 16 Graphics: 8 Sound: 9 Stability: 7 Interface: 3

Overall Score: B-