Dark Orbit is a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game which you can play for free. You have to register an account with them but this doesn't cost you anything, although if you do have money to burn you can upgradge to a premium account later which gives you various benefits to make the game easier for you, and you can also buy one off boosters for specific things.

Basically this is a space warfare game where you collect resources to build up the best space ship that you can, with the best weapons, armour, drones and so on and so on, and then you go out and take on the other online players. You can also build alliances with other players, and there is a forum and an instant chat box on the site.

One orignal aspect of this game is that you can actually win money by playing the game. As each player spends time in-game they help to build up a cash 'jackpot'. Each week all of the players have the chance to take part in a massive battle, where the last man standing (or last ship floating) takes away the full cash jackpot which can be up to £10,000 (about $16,500).

There are actually quite a few different things that you can do in this game, so I'm not going to attempt a completely comprehensive description, but here are some of the main aspects of what you do when you are playing the Dark Orbit game.

Choosing Your Base

The first thing that you do when you sign up for your free account is to choose whether you want to fight out of the base on mars, earth or venus. Each one has its own unique characteristics, but you still start out with the same stuff and get the same oppotunities.

Quests

When you start out in the game the best way to learn what you are doing it to go to the 'quests' section and take on the jobs and challenges that are listing there. The first few are nice and easy and designed to teach you how to play, and then they get harder. Throughout the game you can take on quests to earn experience points, credits, and other resources.

Exploration

You can always just fly around in real time and collect resources and fight against ships that you come across, or run away if you have to!

The Hanger

You can buy new ships, or upgrade the ship that you have with new weapons, ammunition and shields, and you can also buy things like drones either for repair or to help you attack other ships or other equipment such as new engines. You start of with enough credits and 'uridium' to make a few purchases to start yourself off.

Community

You can join a 'clan' to team up with oter players, or start your own clan if you prefer. You can also trade with other players.

 Obviously no free game can really compare with a full PC game that you have to buy, but this comes closer than most. Alot of these free browser multipayer strategy games don't have any kind of real time element, which I think you need to keep it interesting. Judging it purely in comparison to other free online games of this kind I give it 7.5 out of 10.