"Space travel could be cheap by the time you're done with this one"

The Escape Velocity series, up until now, was always something that made me a little envious of Mac users everywhere. The ability to start with a wimpy little cargo ship then fight and trade your way to a dreadnought is one of my favorite formulas for a game. Specific games may get tiring, but the basic idea has never gotten stale. With the latest installment, Windows users can get in on the action. I don't regret a minute of the time I spent on this game.


Gameplay- Some play styles are impractical, otherwise solid.

It's a spaceship simulator. If you've played any of them before, you know the basics: Start with really bad ship. Run trade routes. Get a better ship. Fight pirates for their ships and money. Get an even better ship. Complete special missions... you get the idea. There's a good variety of ships and weapons between the different factions, though you'll need to start one of the major storylines to get at "the good stuff." Of course, you could always just disable that carrier you've been eyeing and try to capture it, instead of buying it outright. That will get the authorities after you though. There's a few different kinds of weapons and ships.

The main split in styles is between the Federation and the Auroran Empire- Feds have high shields and weapons good at damaging them, Aurorans are the same way about armor. A combination of the two weapon styles will wreck most craft you encounter, which is why you see Pirates using both. The Pirates play their role well, they always attack cargo-carrying vessels, including you. Pirate ships and equipment are almost exclusively taken from the other factions, but they are generally augmented to be faster, stronger... you know how the song goes. As one ship description put it- "Leave it to the Pirates to soup up a ship that is already too powerful." A definite plus of this game is that you don't need a capital ship to be a capable fighter (in this case I mean the profession, not the ship). Capital ships actually have several disadvantages (such as being more expensive to upgrade the armor on), so other types of ships have a purpose. You can easily take down a carrier with nothing but a medium sized ship and some good evasive maneuvers.

If you don't feel like taking sides, there are a handful of shorter "strings" to give access to some new ships and upgrades, and regular missions. The Bounty Hunter string is a good example. You take a bounty in a system, your target shows up in one of the connected systems. You find the target, take it out, and come back for a reward. You can abuse this by taking the job in a system with only 1 neighbor though. Eventually you get access to more lucrative bounties.

Honestly, I would have liked more of the odd jobs, such as ferrying a band and launching a probe into uncharted space. It's not hard to experience all of them in a single playthrough. They were interesting little voyages that let you make a quick buck without getting entangled in the local factions, while telling a good story. With so much of the game's content locked in the major story, this was a nice touch.

An important note I must make is that you need a sufficient "combat rating" for most of the strings. So if your idea of fun is mining asteroids and running cargo between ports, you'll miss much of the games content. Just destroying a few ships in self-defense should be enough to start you off. But once your rating hits "Deadly," you can attempt to conquer planets and stations, facing ~120 ships in quick succession, in exchange for a steady paycheck from any worlds you manage to take over. And they don't restock ships in between visits, so you can spend a while whittling away at their fleet before succeeding.

I have a complaint about fighters, it's not worth it to use them. The hangars are expensive, and they take a great deal of space on your ship. The fighters themselves are less expensive, but very prone to dying (with the point-blank range guns and all) and needing to be replaced. The only fighters that don't have this problem are the ones that run back to the mother ship to restock once their missile supplies are depleted. Unless you're sitting on a few million spare credits, using these will quickly drain your bank account. You might try to to fix that by using carrier escorts (which replace their own fighters without your help), but the escort AI is... not great.

You have only a few options for escorts: 1- Stay in formation, fire on whatever is in range (only helpful if your buddies have long range guns). 2- Attack this target, which sends them charging full speed across the battlefield, firing everything they have (even if your target is a shuttle you're trying to disable). 3- Defend me, which means only shoot at something/deploy fighters if you see the whites of their eyes, and it's a little late by that point. The fighters launched from an escort carrier also have a tendency to stack up behind it if you're not actively designating new targets for them, which is tricky when you're trying to keep your own ship intact. On top of all this, the game has a limit on the number of ships that can be in a system at one time, about 64 if I understand correctly. So if you try to make up for the relative weakness of the fighters with sheer numbers, it's not going to work. The only fighters that seemed worth any effort were from the Pirates (which can launch rapidly enough to actually engage in the battle) and the Polaris (which are noticeably faster, tougher, and harder-hitting than the others).

An important aspect I have to mention is the plug-in system. If you've played any of the recent Elder Scrolls games, you know what I'm talking about. Plug-ins are fan-made add-ons which give new ships, technologies, missions, and so on. They also fix the couple bugs the developers missed. They are good way to keep the game fresh, but there's no easy way to find the ones you want. Ambrosia has them listed on their site (which was a nice gesture, as Nova was originally a fan-made conversion to an older game), but there's no way to search the list for specific terms.


Story- There are six. Need I say more?

The setting is established when a new pilot is created: Earth creates hypergates, faster than light travel basically, allowing humanity to expand into the universe. The main hypergate is destroyed, cutting off countless worlds until a workaround is created. In the time spent cut off, the new worlds create their own government systems. Now we've got a handful of factions fighting and trading across the galaxy.

And yes, you read the tagline correctly. There are six major storylines, or "strings" as they're called. The basic principle is the same in all of them: Ally with a major faction. Run missions for them. Work your way up the ladder until you're cruising in a massive carrier, destroying all that stand before you. Your character is noticeably shaped by the string they undertake, which may conflict with your own vision of them. In the Auroran string, you become the typical warrior race guy/gal, fighting everything, and hopefully dying an honorable death in battle someday. In the Federation string... well, I'd rather not spoil it, but you become a massive jerk in no uncertain terms. You do get a chance to bail into the Rebellion string, but it only happens once.

Most of my complaints are in this section, actually. One of the problems with EV:N is how eager it is to funnel you into a major string. Once you've got a suitable combat rating, every faction seems to be queuing up to talk to you. In one playthrough, every other visit to the local spaceport bar resulted in someone asking me to join their side, until I finally did without realizing it. That's another problem. You don't always know what you're getting into. The Bounty Hunter string can divert you to one of major strings, and you won't realize that until it's too late (I learned that the hard way). Oh, did you take that delivery to Earth? Congratulations, you get to either be a slave for the Bureau, or run screaming from Federation space with a fleet chasing after you (It's not a spoiler, this happens very early in). The former string is particularly frustrating: Your access to new ships and equipment is cut off, forcing you to use your current ship until the storyline gives you a new one. I hope you have fun landing on that blockaded planet in your starting shuttle, I certainly didn't. And if you don't like the ships they give you? Too bad. Start a new pilot or finish the string so you can buy what you want again. So yes, the game has a habit of railroading you, but the writing makes up for it in most cases. The frustration of that slave string I keep mentioning also does wonders for putting you in character. When you inevitably get a chance to wreak vengeance upon your captors, you'll do so gladly.

You also can't board any ships involved in string missions. I have mixed feelings on that. Fair enough, with the missions the game often throws at you, you'd have a fleet of captured carriers in no time. But your victories tend to feel hollow because of this. "Hey look, I took on a Polaris Raven (See- Stupidly overpowered battleship) and won! What can I do with the disabled ship...oh, nothing..." The strings are also mutually exclusive. Once you've completed a string, you need to start a new pilot to do anything else. Again, you could take that either way. Having every possible tech upgrade from every faction will make the game ridiculously easy, trust me, I've done it. At the same time, it's no coincidence that one of the most common plug-ins gives you a starting pilot with a good ship and combat rating. Clawing your way up from your basic shuttle is fun the first time, but aggravating on the fifth.

With all my complaining out of the way, the stories are all very well-written and give a good inside look at your allied faction. This is vital, because when your only way of advancing the plot is a wall of text every time you land at a designated planet, the writing had better be exceptional.


Sound/Graphics- Just because it's 2D doesn't mean it has to look bad.

The game is played from a top-down view, though the ships look good because they're shown from more of an isometric viewpoint. The only major impact this has on the gameplay is that it's harder to dodge enemy fire without that third dimension. It also makes the Auroran strategy of "Spam as many shots as physically possible" more viable. The interface is straightforward. Most of the screen contains the current system you're flying through, with your ship of choice centered inside. About one fifth of the screen is reserved for various readouts: The radar display, the shielding and armor levels for your ship, and a smaller pane for your current target. You can tell at a glance if you're winning that dogfight, or if that supposedly lone pirate is getting reinforcements. The radar is a bit nondescript in its most basic form though. You can't even tell which dots are friendly without an upgrade.

Most of the Federation tech is adequate but not impressive. There are blasters and missile launchers, nothing out of the ordinary. The Auroran/Pirate weaponry is much more appealing, from the "BRRRRT!" of chain guns to the explosive impact of the fusion pulse cannon. Polaris tech is usually a bright beam of some sort, but it will still shred your ship if you take it for granted. Each faction has its own ships with their own style. As with their weaponry, the Federation isn't very creative in their ship designs. Pirates will generally fly captured Fed/Auroran craft with more powerful engines and a gray/black paint job. The Aurorans favor slabs of steel, painted red and covered in cannons, with engines added as an afterthought. The Polaris craft look more organic and tend to glow, playing the "utopian society" angle with everything they've got.

The explosions look wimpy, except for that of the almighty EMP torpedo. That's a downer, because when my massive carrier/freighter ship explodes, I expect it to look a bit more climactic, if only to make up for the fact that I now have to reload my save. The explosions sound great though. There is a story segment that mentions you "reeling from the intense firefight you saw upon entering the system," and it won't apply just to your character.

The planets and ports get a separate landing screen, a single image to sum up the general shape of whatever you just landed on, and another text description. Again, thank god for good writing. It does a better job of explaining the pit stops of your voyages than the graphics ever could have.


Replay Value- Read my story tagline again

Ok, I'll stop being lazy. As I said, you must start a new file to complete more than one major string. So there's replay value built-in, but I wish there was an option to start on a more established pilot after your first playthrough. There are work-arounds, even if you don't use plug-ins, but the "just getting started" segment is painfully slow. It only seems to exist to make you more appreciative when you're flying the Deathcruiser 9000 and its fleet of super-carrier escorts. Because each faction has its own style and preferred weapons, fighting in the Federation Carrier is nothing like fighting in the Pirate one. Though, it usually boils down to "kill everything on the screen because you can" at that stage.

Final Summation- It's a great game at a bargain price ($30, I just checked). That you can play to the end six times. If you like Space Sims, I'm surprised you don't have it already.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/11

Game Release: Escape Velocity Nova (US, 07/11/03)