“Seed: The Human Condition” is set for release in May. I was lucky enough to get a preview of the game and spend some time running around in Da Vinci to get a feel for the environment. Seed is a very different MMO indeed. There is no hack and slash speed style like Warcraft. There is no long level grinding like Everquest. Seed is a science fiction game that allows players to work together, hold elections, explore, engineer, and most of all solve the problems of living in a very rough environment. The game functions on many different intellectual levels. The most striking feature of Seed is the game makes you think and work towards a better community.

Seed has been crafted bottom-to-top in a unique artistic style that is best described as "comic-book cyberpunk." This shines so far as the environment is concerned; the entire DaVinci colony is a seamless ocean of technological decay webbed together via cloistered access tunnels ribbed with spot-welded pressure plates. The player avatars are also crafted to look as though they were lifted straight off of the pages of an anime manga; bold and angular lines abound with a minimum of excess detail. Thanks to the spectacular success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, this tendency to lean away from photorealism appears to be more and more openly embraced, and Seed benefits from it considerably.