Escape Velocity (1996)
Themes:Science fiction
Story:Ambrosia's classic 2D space trading game. Fly across the galaxy and shoot, trade, run, and cargo drop your way to galactic domination.
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.161
I don't even know where to begin with this game. Matt Burch made one of the finest open universe/freedom games with Escape Velocity. It's fun, funny, exciting and there was never a shortage of things to do. It is a very difficult game to access and play these days. Please bring it and EVO/N to GOG.
Probably my first "open world RPG" back when we used to have Macs in the house usually. Ambrosia had quite a few gems, but this one stood out. Text based stories but an abundance of systems and planets to check out along with various ships, mods, and fighter wings you can employ throughout.
If I remember correctly there's something like 6 story lines and a few lock you out of joining others. Half the universe might be after you and... you've just jumped to a unknown system that turns out to be hostile. Whoopsies there's a confederate cruiser armed to the teeth on intercept course. Maybe you hyperspace and high tail out. Maybe you employ fighters from your bay, or send some of your wing fighters after them, maybe you blast them with various lasers and missiles to smithereens. Or, maybe you're feeling diplomatic and hail them to work out a bribe or their surrender. Maybe you decide that cruise would be a nice addition to your fleet and knock it around just enough to board. Hmm, their planet with that shipyard looks enticing, let's hail them and demand their tribute.
Either way - the choices are endless.
Ambrosia is unfortunately gone and there's no legal way to play this game unless you're lucky and have some very old emails with the registration codes.
The ease of modding this game makes it infinitely replayable. I'm lucky enough to have still-registered copies of EV and EVO running on a virtual Mac OS 9. Yes, if you own EVN, you can mod into EV and EVO, but you can't then run the mods (plugins) on the modded version of the game with a few exceptions. I'm sure that if this game came to GOG, some old plug-in authors might update their mods for the game to work, or that a dedicated fan of a given plug-in might modify it.
Or maybe someone will create a whole new plug-in that becomes a favorite.
As abandonware, this would absolutely be a great game for GOG to add. So would Override. I'm less hyped on Nova, as the story isn't as good, but the modding community would be great I'm sure.
This was the go-to game in my middle school computer lab. It captured my imagination and delivered the perfect experience of being a space pilot and exploring the universe. I remember mods for Star Wars and Star Trek and gave you the immersive experience that other space games couldn’t.
I would say this game played a serious role in learning how to program as I learned how to mod stuff. I wasn't very good at it but surely enjoyed messing around with the game. The game itself is simple but captivating. I spent hours exploring the galaxy and trying to figure everything out. Getting my first Kestrel class spaceship was a special moment for sure. I'd love to play it again. This time without the shareware limits. I couldn't pay for it back then as it was just too difficult to do from Europe at the time. So Captain Hector came after me a lot :D