PowerUp takes place on some foreign planet that works pretty much like Earth if it were the size of a small island and populated by roughly 20 people. Oh, and by the way, PowerUp runs on the same engine as Ruin Online: Torque, the worst game engine ever created. Since the game world had less depth than Minesweeper, I will describe every area in the game and still have time to play Mass Effect until my fingers fall off.

The Glass Pyramid in the Middle of Nowhere

Surrounded by water and inhabited by a freak show lineup, the Power Pyramid (as I dub it) welcomes new players as a beacon of hope for whatever pitiful planet this game takes place on (NOT EARTH). Like Wal-Mart, the Power Pyramid employees either old people, or in this case, a crippled drug addict to greet new players and talk about his struggles as a man with bum legs.

Littered with laptops and power strips that look like ATM machines, the pyramid consumes the most power on the planet. Every time you bump into one of the said power strips or laptops, an annoying screen pops up asking you what to do (unplug it). However, it seems that something has gone haywire with the electrical system since the power strip or laptop manages to plug itself back in once you step away.

Some Desert with Buggies and Solar Panels

This girl is leaning foreward and I couldn't think of a funny caption to go with it.Solar powered buggies that wipe their asses with the laws of physics fly up vertical cliffs and have worse handling than the cars in GTA4 wait for unsuspecting players in the Solar Mission. It seems that the model designer didn't bother with creating a sitting animation since once your character enters the buggy, he continues to stand and clips right through the roof.

IBM has butt loads of cash but when it comes to teaching our children (I don't have children) about the importance of energy and wind farms, they hire some kid with all the previous experience of "working on some Half Life mod once that fell through." I feel bad for the two no-name companies that pitched this idea to IBM and upon receiving their support, were injected with liquid optimism. You know that they are still sitting there looking at this piece of crap but keep trying to peddle it in some form of crushing denial.

Anyhow, I managed to complete this mission by shooting some black clouds with yellow eyes. I accomplished this with a gun that shot green goo (Solar Cum for the scientifically inclined) and found that I had to aim at the little cube that was emitting the smoke effect. Now, normally in games, they bother to paint some kind of invisible texture on these boxes since it looks extremely stupid. But no! Professionalism is obviously not a very important priority when it comes to saving the planet from angry clouds.

Upon completion, I received 336 points that were ultimately useless since no leveling system exists in PowerUp but that should have already been expected.

A Junkyard Near Some Wind Farm

From what I could tell, one of the windmills fell over destroying some cargo containers. It also managed to throw some junk in the air which magically landed in the perfect order for me to climb on. Apparently, the remaining windmills were not built up to proper standards (like this game) and all of the propellers, engines, and turbines flew off and into a nearby junk yard. My job was to bump into every single part, which thanked me upon doing so, and then run over to reconstruct each windmill.

The problem is that when bumping into a part, it doesn't go anywhere. The part stays put and will always say "thanks" every time I bump into it. Since so many parts existed, it became impossible to remember which ones I had run into and which ones I hadn't. Eventually I got tired of trying to sort out the wind farm (which already looked reconstructed anyway) and decided that enough was enough. So I guess technically I didn't complete this game but I still received 465 useless points regardless of the fact I quit early.

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About This Column

"Free" MMORPGs have grown in popularity to the point of supersaturation. How on Earth can one person possibly play them all and determine the best platform for painfully long level grinding, illiterate online communities, and fatal bugs? MMO Roulette examines a different online "free" role playing game every other week, providing you the lowdown on each. Every chamber is loaded when you play MMO Roulette.

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