Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

The game is rising so many mixed feeling that I cannot simply hammer 4-5 starts like many other happy commentators. I'm actually surprised by a large number of positive comments. Anyway, back to the game. The story is ok-ish although close to the end it gets outright idiotic. The last mission (if you are lucky to get there) is simply a nonsense and boring, just a waste of time. It is almost as if producers run out of steam and had no idea how to finish of the game... . Moving on. Navigation is ABYSMAL. You may be a fanboy of this game but cannot, simply cannot negate that any sensible way to set way points is just rubbished by the used mechanics. On top of that come crashes. Many crashes... . The game is so bugged that you need much resolve to get till the end. Luckily there is a large sadomasochistic fan-base for this game that by trial and error found ways to avoid most of the crashes; still be prepared to do many replays and don't count on patches. Last negative point, I promise. It is very hard to control which weapons and when are deployed. If your ship has many of them it is also very very likely that of one type only 2-3 will be used. It is most likely caused by the insufficient energy or something but there is no way (I could nit figure it out) to tell when the problem appears. At the end there is so much micromanagement that it robs the minuscule amount of fun you ma still have... . Now the bright sides of the game. Yes, there are some but not many so don't get your hopes too high. Graphics and scenery is nice (explosions of energy bombs are far too bright and you will be constantly blinded by them). Music is also quite pleasant. Concerning the game's mechanics, I found the ability to attack subsystems really nice (like in homewolrd 2 but you can completely disable subsystems). This is also the second way to drop enemy's shields (aside from hammering with energy shells). You may adjust your strategies accordingly and gives you some nice flexibility. Concluding. It is very specific game for very patient or bored players. If you fit in one of the two categories just go for it.

I played this game in standard and experienced difficulty, and the shortcomings were not so obvious on the standard playthrough, but became very anoying on higher difficulty settings. The graphics and the whole setting is (STILL!) BEAUTIFUL. Voice acting is fine, sounds are good too. The story is nice, but that's not the main point of the game. It is fleet battle. This game got so MANY THINGS RIGHT in fleet battle tactics, I loved it on the standard playthrough, with all the meaningful ship control options and ship outfitting decisions. The bad things start to show on higher difficulty levels where you need to squeeze out all the performance you can get from your ships. It begins with some anoying BUGS, (fort shield not deploying, ships get "stuck" and refuses to shoot, or same happens to the enemy, allied ships refuse to shoot etc) It continues with the anoying AI of your ships. Since its tactical fleet sim, the individual ships sould be responding well to your commands. For instance if you set them on aggressive, they just shoot at the closest enemy, ignoring your specific command to attack another enemy. Of course you can set the behaviour fo the ship to focused manual, but then you need to set EVERYTHING (speed, subsystems, energy, weapons) manually, which is not necessary, and needs constant micromanagement adjustment during battle, otherwise you run out of energy etc. So there is NO MIDDLE GROUND between extreme micro or senselessly shooting what's closest. The other problem is the cluttered UI which exacerbates the constant need for micromanagement on higher difficulty. There are differen energy systems on the ships, but some are linked, and that's no aparent at all. The diffiult battles you face would need better control over your fleet but with these flaws that can be achieved through extreme micro only. A shame, since this game got so much RIGHT! With a bit more polishing it could have been the greatest. It is still good, but extremely frustrating.

Fun game but i found myself getting frustrated due to some of the bugs and baffling design mentioned such as only being able to use navigation points in space. Soemtimes... ok alot of the time i use a walkthrough to find out i have been failed due to a bug or non event . However when it does work it is great and despite the frustrations i keep coming back wnatign to finish it and see. You can save during missions (just don't alt tab or you cannot save again untill you load the game). The story so far isn't amazing but its better than sc2 in terms of sci fi plots. if you like trial and error strategy with cool fights check this out its worth a shot.

I am not much for difficult games, I guess I just like to blow stuff up. When I played this game when it was new, I failed many of the late game missions but I kept coming back, reading a walkthrough and trying again. I, like many others, have bought, played, and gotten tired of many, many games before getting to the end; this game is not one of those. If you like space-based games then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up. There are still plenty of resources available to help you if you get stuck, and it appears to have an active mod community.

The controls are extremely clumsy especially when you need to use the manual, control. Home world had already been released at this point with much better control scheme that felt intuitive. This game is the exact opposite. The interface is clunky and having to engage manual navigation of your ship is punishing. Getting your ships to fire the right weapons at the right time is a nightmare, espeically using the artillery attacks. Overall the game is a painful grind.