EVERSPACE™

.....and you will. i like this game. it may just be in beta, but it feels finished. lots of fast ship combat. play in first person mode and it's like being back in a good cockpit shooter from the 1990's, e.g. descent freespace. switch to third person mode and you're back in this century playing an rts game like starpoint gemini 2 or rebel galaxy. there are currently 7 sectors you can sequentially jump to in everspace. you don't save games in everspace, but you can quit and later return to the game in the same condition you were in at the beginning of the sector you quit in. if you are kia in the game, you return to sector 1 and begin again as a new person in a new ship. you lose all previously gained resources, but you keep all previously gained perks and you are given a chance to use previously gained credits to buy perks once before you launch in the new ship. after launch, you lose any unspent credits. here's how i played. i initially played the death game for about 20 kias and played almost exclusively for credits, usually earned in ship combat. i used the credits to buy perks to better equip my new life ships. the combat was good training in how to fight enemy ships and installations. i finally tired of death and began to play for endurance to see how far i could get in sectors. i backed off from a lot of combat and went for more resources. the combat and situations get more complicated with each progressive sector. when you get to sector 5 things get really hectic. you are jump inhibited for a while in sector 5 and really need to know how to fight. after about another 10 kias, i finally managed to finish the game in sector 7. i am looking forward to playing the game when the promised new ships, etc., are added in the release version of everspace.

Concept looks good on paper, but still does not work in reality. It is better then most modern implementations of "rogue-like-in-space" thanks to spacecraft development after each death. It does not feel so pointless and unrewarding as FTL was. Unfortunately it fails to balance space exploration with space fights. Most of the times you are better of flying away to next sector (if you can since some times enemy will be at spawn) rather then engaging enemy space crafts. And even if you do manage to kill enemies (or eliminate then by other means due to clever planning and cunning) and are left with a sector full of interesting items, timer kicks in and waves of enemies or boss-ship shows up. It would not be so bad but space fight element is way too arcade - no human can make turns like NPC does. And no human can aim and shot as good as NPC does. Well, not unless you are 13 years old. That really killed the game for me. I mean I have noting against starting over after death, but only if there is even a slim chance I can win at some point in future. No amount of ship upgrades can change that here. Still, if you are 13 yers old, go for it! It looks really good and there is even some long-term story elemnt in it.

This game defines itself as a rogue-like space shooter, if you aren't new to this genre it's exactly what you'd expect, and with better graphics than usual. You basically jump through randomly generated locations where you can look for resources and fight some bad guys, the farther you go the harder it is, and when you die (you will!) you have to start over, but you can spend the money from your last run in perks that improve your odds. You also have to learn from your errors so you also progress as you just become better. Of course this is just the basic formula, the thing is this game implements it nicely with a variety of weapons and devices, hidden bases, space hazards, ship wrecks, etc. keeping it interesting. There's also three playable ships (basically light, medium and heavy "fighter-class" ships) that change the gameplay style a bit. However it still lacks some events with a story or a background, at this moment there's not even a proper ending (keep in mind that at the time of this review the game is still in development). If they do that last right it could turn into a really awesome game, even so right now it is already quite good.

I like the graphics, I like the way the game looks, how it starts, and it would be easy to learn and play if not for the fact that the game will not allow you to configure and use a joystick. Whan it comes to a sim where you have a spaceship, or fighter plane, nothing compares to a joystick for control and play. I for one can't do an x-box controller, or a keyboard and mouse. except for certin type od games like Wolfenstein 3D for example.

If you love getting killed at the start on the easy setting, then this is the gane for you. I found the controls so frustratuing that if it was on a CD/DVD, I'd have 2 halves.