EVERSPACE™

Everspace combines elements of FTL and a classic space sim like Wing Commander III—though without being as good as either of them. You play as an amnesiac pilot who must shoot and loot his way past jump points spread across seven sectors of increasing difficulty. The bulk of the gameplay involves arcade-style combat and poking through freighter wrecks, space stations, and caves to find fuel, credits, accessories, and so on. Death is permanent, but you can use the credits you earn each time to improve your ship and mitigate your surroundings between runs. The space backdrops are beautifully rendered and the game is fast, intense, and mostly fun, but I found that there was a certain impersonality to Everspace. The story, which emerges through comic-book style cutscenes, is uninspiring, and I never came close to caring about the relationships among the characters. Also, eventually you realize that the key to beating the game is simply to spruce up your ship to a certain level and then take care of your fuel consumption during a run. In this sense, the learning curve of the game is backwards: it starts out frustrating and difficult, and ends up feeling easy. Still, this is definitely not to say the game is unenjoyable. For those who like flight sims, roguelike games, and space exploration, Everspace is a solid buy.

This turns out to be exactly the game I hoped it would be. Each run you make, you learn a little bit more, you gather a bit more money to improve the base stats of your ships, you get a bit better at fighting the enemy ships. Each run follows the same basic pattern but with unexpected specifics, so you make progress and get better while still never being sure what you'll run into. I've completed the game several times now with the interceptor, still working on scout and gunship - but I only play on hard mode; I think if I was on normal I'd be completing it with those with no problem. So the difficulty scaling is exactly right. The variety of opponents is excellent, and you nearly always have the tools you need to take them down, although you might need to think a bit and learn how to use things you haven't made common use of. The first time I used shield disruptors and damage boosters to take down a corvette, I was quite proud of myself - I normally use corrosion missiles. All in all the game offers excellent fun in fifteen to thirty minute bursts - or longer, if you get in the zone and don't want to stop.

Everspace has some nice stories to tell and really good progression and crafting systems, but mostly the game is not about those. It is about dogfighting, where it combines the best of the 90th flight arcades' mechanics (space, air, underground or underwater - it doesn't matter). In this game, you fight everything from the little drones to large capital ships, and the large arsenal of very different weapons and devices makes it surprisingly addictive. The gameplay is pretty much straightforward - get from point A to point B (or die trying) through a chain of random locations, some of which are worth exploring for the hidden goods (and minor tasks like saving a transport ship, eliminating a criminal or retrieving a lost cargo), the other are worth escaping - yet trust me, you don't need anything else here as, again, what other excuse do you need to test your flying skills? To make things fair, many things like your "credits" (used to both trade and upgrade your ship) and abilities to craft specific weapons and other goods remain should you die so your next attempt will be somewhat easier. In short, if you both miss the flight arcades and want a game meant for you to finally have some simple fun without anything to annoy you, I'd recommend to give Everspace a try. From the technical side, the game is well optimized and maintains high framerates on pretty modest systems. p.s. To me, the music definitely deserved the FLAC version.

That game hit home perfectly in my case. Easy to pick up. Beautiful. You can play 10 minutes or 4 hours. A little bit of grinding, a little bit of tricks, upgrades that doesn't force you into game-lasting decisions. Just a game for you to have a short, pleasant break with. I wait for 2nd part with high hopes.

great graphics and feels like your right there