LOCO: Evolution has done a lot over the last year to stand out in an increasingly crowded sea of lookalikes. The free-to-play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game released by Alaplaya has recently undergone a series of changes, both cosmetic and functional. I’ve been playing the game for a week now; here is what happened to me in the Land of Chaos Online.

It's been a while since I last made a visit to check out alaplaya's Land of Chaos Online, so when they debuted their highly anticipated Evolution expansion, I decided to track the team down to have a chat about how Land of Chaos Online has been going thus far, and how the team has been faring in introducing new characters and features into the game, as well as touching lightly on some future plans for the game. You can read on for all the glorious interview details!

Happy anniversary, Land of Chaos Online! This free-to-play tactical MMO just reached its first birthday, and alaplaya is celebrating with presents:

"For its first birthday, you can try out all of the previously available heroes. Take on the role of the dark Lacrimosa. Or perhaps the mighty treasure hunter Ash. Even the might dwarf Orka is waiting for you!

If you've missed your date with Lacrimosa, Partizan and Irene Claudel, you can now get them in a bundle. The three IT-Girls want in on the action!"

According to alaplaya, Land of Chaos Online has more than 530,000 registered players across North America and Europe. More than 850,000 in-game heroes have been created from the game's ever-growing roster.

Has it been two weeks already? The second champion to come out for Land of Chaos Online is here, and his name is Ellan Rhineford. According to LOCO lore, Ellan has lost his family, his domain and his league of fearsome warriors, so he has decided to take out his emotional frustrations on the helpless players of LOCO. Not much in known about Ellan's abilities, but it does seem like he'll be using a spear and he will be capable of dealing some decent damage as a well-rounded character. According to his statistics chart, Ellan doesn't really specialize in one specific category, but he does boast some decent stats in CON, STR, HP and WIS, so expect him to play a solid front-line role.

Ellan Rhineford will be making his way into the LOCO AP Shop today. For more information on the game, check out our recent look at Land of Chaos Online!

If you ever asked us here at ZAM what three ingredients make for a solid game, our requirements would be surprisingly straightforward: make it fun, make it interesting and (if possible), give it a cool acronym. You'd be surprised, then, to realize that there just aren't a whole lot of games in the market that can claim to follow this model. If you think about it, an MMORPG can be as polished and bug-free as you want it to be, but if it's not fun to play, why would anyone want to check it out? Similarly, a different MMO might have a ton of activities and a huge amount of depth, but if nobody is interested in doing anything, you might have an even bigger problem here. And, of course, if you don't have a cool acronym for your game, then talking about it in general conversations will be that much harder. Luckily, burda:ic already knew about our foolproof gaming criteria when they invited us to check out Land of Chaos Online (LOCO), a new action RPG that really does inject a great deal of fun into such an interesting mix of gaming genres. Did we also mention the game's acronym is LOCO? How cool is that?

In reality, burda:ic's Land of Chaos Online actually seems to be at the front of a new free-to-play gaming renaissance. Over the past few years, the introduction of new MMORPGs into the market has been fairly light, with not too many solid free-to-play additions. What LOCO represents, then, is a new trend of F2P games with more solid development budgets and an aim to bring more quality into an industry notorious for skimping on production values. And does LOCO succeed in its ambitious aims? That's what ZAM went to find out!