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Escape Velocity Nova?
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I can think of a game like that. Escape Velocity Nova. This game is the first game I ever became addicted to. This game is what I poured hours of my childhood into. This game is the reason I got my first pair of glasses. Details that you want to read, and an old CRT monitor.
This game is worth the money.
EV Nova. Literally the best game I've ever played. Hands down. Worth every penny of the $30 it costs. It will provide you with hundreds of thousands of hours of entertainment (I played just about every day 2003-2013). I wish I still had my activation key.
The game is hard to get into. But it's so freaking good.
It's got political intrigue. Deep stories (and tons of them). Billions of ways to build your ship, and a billion different jobs you can take on with it. There are mini stories, missions, and grand galaxy-shaking quests which ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE. When you play the rebel story to its conclusion, THINGS CHANGE IN THE GALAXY. Real, tangible changes. That pirate trade run you so enjoyed? It's gone if you do a certain number of missions. You offend the wrong people? You dun screwed up, son, but you can fix it with hard work and dedication.
Everything role playing games usually promise is in that game, but it doesn't even advertise itself as an RPG.
It's the purest essence of "obscure gem."
A relatively unpopular Space Trading game from 2002. It's the best game I've ever played. It's big, complex, mysterious, and there is an unbelievable level of content in it. It's got factions with realistic political intrigue and interactions, missions you can do that really do effect the world (I remember one where you terraform a planet!), great depth to the combat (if you're willing to get into it), and the stories are presented with luscious prose. There's villains and heroes. You can pick sides, or just roam without taking up any big stories. There's smaller side quests like the Wild Geese storyline, or the delivery of a strange probe to an even stranger world.
It's everything I've ever wanted in gaming.
And I've lost my activation key. :(
Aquaria is pretty interesting if you're really in love with the "vast, menacing ocean" theme and don't mind a more castlevania/metroid-like game experience.
On the other hand, if you don't mind a change in setting, EV: Nova and Ur'Quan Masters are a bit more similar in terms of game play - they just happen to be set in space. They're both pretty old (and it's hard to justify the 30$ pricetag on EV: Nova, but try the demo), but I don't know of any more modern games that play quite as well as these do.
The Escape Velocity games were decent. They're too expensive now for a game so old, but you should be able to get a demo version.
There's also a freeware game called Vega Strike, but I never gave it a shot despite it looking interesting.
If you liked Star Control, you would probably like Escape Veolocty: Nova too. You can still buy it on the publishers website but the price is $30. It has never changed. I started a small campaign a couple years ago on Reddit to convince them to have a Steam-like sale but they said they were not in control of the pricing.
Ambrosia makes stuff primarily for Mac and Apple products, although a few of their best did eventually get ported to Windows. Still, the modding community preferred Mac for the most part. I don't know if that's still true, I haven't played it in a long time (great game though).
I'm going to nitpick here for a second.
>because your tv is native 1080p, but it is getting a 720p signal from your console on that game. Some games run 1080p, even 900p, but that all depends on the developer. Your tv is CAPABLE of 1080p, but won't run all games 1080p.
Technically right. The game is rendered at 720p/900p/whatever in the console just like the game is rendered at 1080p on your PC.
Then the frame goes through 'upscaling' where a dedicated co-processor ( at least on the 360 ) would take the data and scale it up to 1080p or whatever the native resolution of the display device is.
Contrast this with 'downscaling' which modern high-end (probably medium-end as well) PCs can do which render the game at 4k or whatever and scale the image down to fit the display you're using.
To see what these two methods do simply open an image in MS Paint and resize the image. Upscaling ends up with strange artifacting and 'larger' pixels. Downscaling ends up with crisper images and un-needed AA. A game that does this by default ( sprite based, but the sprites ran through this process ) is Escape Velocity: Nova. You get a surprising amount of detail for a smaller image with downscaling.
Escape Velocity is a top-down 2D Privateer clone, and it's OSX compatible. It's a little long in the tooth, but it's a classic and well worth your time.
Space Rangers is similar, but it's turn-based and a little newer. It has a load of cool features and optional goodies. You can run around trading. You can get involved in optional planetary battles. There are choose your own adventure style minigames where you're presented with challenges like running an intergalactic hotel. Loads to do. I really love it.
Unfortunately, both games have you controlling a single ship with optional wingmen. I haven't found a good game that simulates operating a vast trade fleet in space yet. Which is a shame, because I'd be all over that. Closest thing I've found is the X series, which is 3D, and hugely complex. That said, if you can bring yourself to bite the bullet and learn the game, it's enormously rewarding (steer clear of X: Rebirth, 3 and below are great). You can avoid/flee most combat situations, or hire a fleet of capital ships and fighters to do the fighting for you. You can even buy space stations and produce the goods yourself, and set up vast chains of manufacturing labs that produce each component leading up to a finished product which you may then sell for maximum profit, or keep for your own use.
I don't know if it's 'obsure' parsley but EV Nova is an awesome game. I think you can download the demo here. Set in the distant future where hyperspace technology is a possibility, there are some cool stories and different paths to take. You can decide to be earn your credits by helping people, bounty hunting, transporting goods or pirating vessels once you have the crew to overpower a vessel.
Nova plays fine on a modern Mac, no workaround required. Just did a playthrough a month or so back on Yosemite. It's been a UB for a long time. No special version required, this download will run fine.
The only problem is it's still $30. A lot of Ambrosia's stuff was just published by them and they have little or no control over pricing of it.
Cool, although theres a great 2d space game called Escape Velocity Nova, its highly moddable so if you you liked you could relatively easily create a Star Citizen Total conversion? http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
I also used to play Escape Velocity and it's sequel a lot. I spent a lot of time playing the original with the Star Wars plug in for it.
I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet so it might not be the same but you might want to check out Space Pirates and Zombies (S.P.A.Z). It's top down, and has numerous galaxies to explore.
You can also get it, along with at least 4 other games in the Humblie Indie Bundle for whatever price you're willing to pay.
The last EV game to be released was EV Nova which was also released for Windows, but I dont know much about it.
T-O-M-E. Insanely rich and assiduously balanced Tolkien roguelike.
Escape Velocity Nova. Star Control II-ish top-down galaxy explore-and-trade-a-thon.
Just Cause 2 is my choice for sandbox FPS. Go around and do shit...so fun.
FTL really reminds me of Escape Velocity: Nova. EV:Nova isn't a roguelike, and the combat isn't as strategic, but it has all the great space exploration, ship outfitting, quest-doing, and all that good stuff. It also has much more content over-all, and there is no time-rush, so you're free to live your life as a space pilot however you see fit. It's 100% sandbox. You can also trade, buy new ships, build your own fleets, take over planets (and eventually rule the galaxy.) Definitely one of my favorite games of all time, and still holds up just fine to today's standards. It's also fully moddable, and there are tons of excellent mods out there that make the game absolutely enormous, if it wasn't big enough already. I've been waiting for a similar game that's just as good, but still nothing yet!
It may be slightly more difficult to find a cheap one, but an oldish mac (they made it OSX only now so it needs to be OSX 10.5 or newer) would be just as good for the EV games as they were actually made native for Mac. You can still buy and download the full game from Ambrosia here:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
It's $30.
There is a good mods section on the website to have a look through too. The main one I recommend is the ship variants mod so you can choose from the different variants of a particular ship that you are buying. There are many more worthwhile ones too. There are also mods which allow you to play original EV and EV Override within EV Nova which are pretty much flawless. Some people might like to buy those games too but the way I see it $30 for Nova is already a little pricey, and Ambrosia clearly don't have a problem with you using the mods or they wouldn't host them on their website.
Good luck PC hunting, try craigslist and stuff like that.
Nova is for intel. There are also conversions of EV + Override that work in the Nova engine, so it should be fairly easy to set up the original Escape Velocity as well as override.
You can grab the EV Classic and Override conversions from this page.
I was sold at "Similar to Escape Velocity Nova".
Awesome games. I put countless hours into EV Override back in the day.
Check em out! (warning: game requires Quicktime and the game needs to be forced to 60hz if you have a 120hz monitor)
Edit: Don't forget the Resolution Patcher.
Have you looked at Escape Velocity Nova or SPAZ?
Escape Velocity was my favorite game for the longest time. SPAZ is the closest newer game I could find to it. Both let you explore the galaxy, trade, take sides in battles between different factions, or even blow up space stations.
They also both have demos, so you can give them a shot and see if they're what you're looking for.
Aw man, I know that there's probably nobody here who knows what I'm talking about, but the universe of Escape Velocity: Nova is actually incredible. It's one of the only expansive sci-fi universes that gives a realistic and justifiable background for the vast swaths of human colonization and cultural polarization.
Even though the basic descriptions of each different group of humans are all kind of uninspired (Oppressive and militaristic govt, savage but prideful warrior race, swashbuckling rebel alliance, holier-than-thou race of telepaths with advanced technology...), the amount of detail put into the details of everything from the complex honor systems of the Aurora, to the subtle and insidious takeover of the Federation government by the Bureau of Internal Investigation, to the inter-caste relationships between the citizens of the Polaris, is absolutely stunning. Even different areas of space have different paths between stars that reflect the cultures that charted them.
The ways these cultures clash and interact drives the many directions the plot as game progresses, and I've never found a sci-fi exploration game that actually had me as interested in actually exploring just to find new planets and read the flavor text for each one, because there was always something interesting to discover.
Escape Velocity: Nova. Isometric 2D space combat game with multiple story lines, leading to multiple play throughs. Earn credits doing jobs, upgrade to different ships, built a fleet and take over planets (Seriously, there are at least 100 planets)
Polycon and Frozen Heart were really cool mods for Escape Velocity: Override (if I remember correctly, it was about a decade ago). I didn't play EV:N mods for long enough to see any good Total Conversion mods, although I'm sure there are definitely some solid ones. Looking at this it looks like Polycon came out for EV:N, thought I'm not sure it was any good. I think that both EV:Classic and EV:Override total conversions came out for the Nova engine, so that'd probably be fun to play. Or you could check out their forums.
Played the living shit out of that game years ago. It inspired myself and two others to make our space sim games, Project Alpha shortly folowed by Project Delta
Commercially they were a flop, mainly due to Alpha being our very first game, and in a niche market to boot. We still have a fan or two left over, 2 years later. I played some portal 2 campaign with him for about 6 hours.
I fucking love the feeling of starting poor, working my way up and toying with dozens of unique upgrades, materials and controllable entities. It's a rich, satisfying feeling not often captured. EV nova, Plants vs. Zombies and oblivion all spring to mind.
I want to return to the Project Universe series one day, a release a top down 3D game, loaded with story, missions, graphics, physics and customisiation. Oh god the customisation it will have.
Sigh For now I'm writing software. It's awesome to have money, but I miss making games full time. It will be over soon, our current batch of games completed, and a return the elite genre is in order. I've gotta get up in the Steam with Project Universe. That would kick more than it's fair share of ass.
I'm prattling. It's 3:30am, and tired and stressed.
It is nowhere near a sim, or anywhere near new even, but have you tried Escape Velocity Nova? I still play that game from time to time. It is a top down space game and has an almost absurd amount of replayability.
While $30 is quite a bit much, it does have a pretty extensive free trial, and is a lot of old school fun. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
Okay, I'm about to hit you with some Classic Mac Gameplay.
Escape Velocity: Nova is the third installment of a shareware franchise that goes back to OS 7.1. It's a top-down, single-player, 2D space simulator for trade, combat, and conquest. It's as non-linear as you'd like it to be (or you can play through several mission-based campaigns) and there are several high-quality plugins that completely change the game. It has tons of replay value.
I've been playing the Escape Velocity series for over 15 years now; it never gets old. Whenever, during the dark days of the mid-90's (during the sorry reign of Gil Amelio), having a Mac and gaming on it was * ridiculed*. Amongst the few high-quality Mac-only games were the ones coming out of Ambrosia and Bungie. We all know what happened to Bungie and the offspring of Marathon, but Ambrosia has plugged along, making solid games. They even had a "hacking" game called Uplink, the only game I've come across of its type.
Something that was common for many Mac games was expandability and user-customization. The Marathon series pioneered this for FPS before Quake servers got completely insane; some of the most popular downloads for the original Escape Velocity were tools to help users create new worlds. I even got a plug for Ambrosia's Asteroids-type game, Maelstrom, that replaced the sounds with samples from Monty Python. Every time my ship fired, it would scream, "Ni!"
Sorry to wax nostalgic all over your screen.
tl;dr Check out Escape Velocity: Nova.
Edit: I can't have been playing since before it was released. 15 years, not 16.
Right on Ambrosia Software's website. Pretty certain that's the only collection of addons, that being said, their collection is quite extensive. Tons of QoL things that make a huge difference, at least for me.
Best of luck to you man!
Escape Velocity isn't on Steam, but /u/Macnaa speaks the truth. Escape Velocity Nova was a game that came out in 2002. Endless Sky would not exist, and not be the game you love, if the Escape Velocity series had not captured the hearts and minds of so many young people some 15-20 years ago or so (depending on the version).
It is a bit of an older game, but I'd like to suggest Escape Velocity: Nova. The top-down spaceship games Arumba has been playing recently reminded me of it very strongly, and I think he would enjoy it.
Edit: Forgot to mention, the game does have a free demo, available here, just above the purchase button.
Edit 2: Just did some poking around, and found there is a spiritual successor called Endless Sky in the works, available free on Steam, here
If you said Mac, I'd say Escape Velocity. You absolutely started with a small rectangular shuttle and everything else was spot on. There were missions and plot arcs and trading and ship types and systems and etc, everything else is spot on. This game may be near 15-20 years old now. Here is EV: Nova, the OS X compatible third in the series. The first two were System 7/9 only.
I highly recommend Escape Velocity: Nova. The game was originally released for Mac and eventually fully ported to PC. The entire game is fully playable with keyboard only functionality. You can use a mouse for clicking on buttons in the game if you wish and a trackpad/pointing stick will more than suffice.
There is also a modding community for the game with loads of user and developer created content.
There are 2 predecessors to this game: Escape Velocity (Classic) and Escape Velocity: Override. The game developer, Ambrosia, released the full games of both Classic and Override as plugin packs for Escape Velocity: Nova.
Here is a "Let's Play" video review of Escape Velocity: Nova.
Here is a "Let's Play" video review of Escape Velocity (Classic) running as a plugin on Nova.
/u/omgchad, you may want to try Escape Velocity an old dungeon crawler style 2d space game. I think you'll find almost all of what you want other than multiplayer, and the way the game is built it feels surprisingly full of life. And in the grand tradition of 90s shareware, its free to try until the invincible ship follows you around shooting you until you buy it =D
My Suggestions...
#22 Definately. Years and years ago my favorite game ever was a mac only platform and i haveyet to find a game as similar in design to it. While VERY similar to master of Orion It was part space RPG part action adventure. It was called: Escape Velocity you can pick up a great trial of it, but this style game is something ive yet to see on the android market, and it could easily be accomplished. Link for game
The other idea is not so much a game, but like something soely to increase the "gamerscore" playstore points. I dont know how Android allows you to input challenges, but i was wondering why there isnt a "game" out there just to severely inflate the gamerscores. And if you, as a dev are concerned with IAP like it seems alot of Dev's are you can create different IAP's to increase the gamerscore multipliers. MY idea for a game that culd be liek this is similar to the old flash based game Upgrade Complete Or even build the metric into one of your current game ideas just build in one of the odd features that it completely bunks the Playstore game-score metrics. And just over inflates it by a mass amount. Like you can get a playscore from 1 - 20 in just one playthrough...
Well, I remember when I was a young middle schooler, super excited for the newest installment of my favorite game to come out. I made demands around the house that no one use the phone overnight. I waited until midnight when everyone was asleep and then I started downloading and went to bed with dreams of space battles and ship upgrades dancing through my head. I got up early the next morning. 6:15 am. The game had about twenty minutes left (according to computer's estimate.) I ate breakfast and stared at the screen hoping and waiting.
Then, at just about 6:40 am, six and a half hours later, my MASSIVE 70 MB of a game had finally finished downloading.
(The game was Escape Velocity: Nova. One of, if not my top, most repayable and loved game. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ )
I remember an old top-down space trading game called.. E3 I think? I'm blanking on the name and google isn't helping. (edit: found it, Escape Velocity: Nova )
Anyway, the way it worked was if you wanted a tutorial, you checked a box at the start. And then as the game starts you get into some dialogue with a grizzled old merchant who's willing to show a newcomer the ways of space. He tags along with you for a while and points out a few tips (here's how you dock with a station, here's how you make profit trading commodities, etc).
Your suggestion reminds me of this. Just have NPCs tag along with you giving you text/voice blurbs about the finer details of the game.
The Escape Velocity series of games were basically "Pirates: IN SPACE". They're very customisable, and there are loads of missions, custom ships, and entire universe mods.
It seems a bit silly that they're still charging full price for such an old game though.
I'm not familiar with either game, but based on your description and the video take a look at SPAZ (Space Pirates And Zombies). It's a similar control and style, although planetary conquest is not a primary part of it.
You might also like the Escape Velocity series. They are older, but the last one (Nova) can still run on most modern hardware (although it doesn't scale well in resolution). It's a more open ended sandbox type game, but does have the ability to conquer planets if I remember right.
You should check out Escape Velocity. Action Adventure game where you start in a shuttle and work your way up to a capital ship controlling the galaxy.
it is VERY dated but still fun. I recently downloaded the demo and I am trying to get a plugin to work for the first game.
It is made by Ambrosia SW
Escape Velocity (Caution: autoplaying video) I grew up on Mac's so there wasn't much in terms of gaming. One day I went with my mom to Price Club (Pre-Costco) and got a set of like 10 CDs of shareware. I found Escape Velocity and played the hell out of it. Ambrosia is a great little company who make Mac/iDevice games. They finally ported it to Windows about 10 years ago. I had to purchase it again just to support them.
did you get that humble bundle they just started? also, i hope you've played EV Nova. i had macs for 20 years until 2 years ago when i finally built this. i feel your pain.
I played a crazy amount of Continuum/Subspace after getting my first PC (CTF on the Extreme Games server). I grew up using Macs, and one of the (few) games I had access to on that was Escape Velocity, Ambrosia Software came out with a native Windows version of the third game Escape Velocity: Nova. It's not multiplayer like C/S but it has similar top-down views and flight mechanics, it's in the sparse Space Trader genre, but a fun game.
It's crazy that it's still $30 though, it was that at launch years ago. There is a trial version though, so you can see if you like it.
It was released 9.5 years ago, but Ambrosia still wants $30 for it, so it's probably not worth opening your wallet. It is shareware, so you could give it a try at least.
If anyone has ever played the Escape Velocity games, they have accurate space travel. One little push and you just keep going. The controls were one of my favorite things about the games, actually.
You can get all the various addons for the game for free, and also buy a legit copy of the came from the makers (if you feel $30 for a 15 year old game is acceptable) here:
EV Nova was made by Ambrosia Software, and you can grab the free trial right here. I'm not sure how long the free trial lasts or how far you can go with it, but hey it's better than buying it and hating it! Ofc you can also buy if from that same link, but I would try before you buy, since it really suffers from old-game syndrome.
I started off on a different classic: Escape Velocity Nova ($30).
I've always wanted to get in to the opensource...spiritual cousin, Naev, with a german let's play/review with current gameplay footage here.
For all extremely disappointed No Man's Sky fans, I'd recommend a fairly old school game called EV Nova. I don't know if it runs on any new systems but if you want awesome space adventure with pretty good combat (albeit, 2D, which might actually even be better than 3D space combat IMO) check out EV Nova. I think it was the last installment in the EV series. It has excellent storylines you get caught up in by simply traveling around. Multiple interesting alien races. You choose a faction and it matters. I remember this game so fondly. I don't know if you can find any versions that'll work on modern computers (it says 10.5-10.7 here) but here's a link anyway: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
Not the craziest graphics, not the most innovative gameplay, but they got space right, and for a sci-fi fan like me that made it incredibly cool back in the day.
EDIT: found a fix that makes it run up to El Capitan! https://github.com/RyuKojiro/novafix
I'll try to bring up some different ones:
Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The first game by the infamous Starbreeze. A stealth-action game that alternates between (some of the best) hand-to-hand combat, shooting, and stealthy stuff. For a game from 2004, it has a bunch of really interesting features and gameplay innovations not seen at the time. The story is a little lacking though. Unfortunately it cannot be bought on Steam, only GoG. Probably best to play the remastered version packed in with Assault on Dark Athena.
Escape Velocity: Nova
I never hear anyone talk about this one, so maybe it could be interesting to cover. Its the most recent game in the Escape Velocity series. Originally only for Mac, the game is a sandbox space exploration game, similar to the likes of Wing Commander but isometric. The combat is similar to Asteroids or Galak-z, with the story playing out in a "choose your adventure" style. There are a lot of cool concepts in this one, such as interlocking quest lines and random events occurring in space or on planet. There are 6 major campaigns to play through, and a few minor ones with a bit of meat in them. One of my favourite parts is the galactic war playing out in game. If you jump into solar systems on the front lines there is constant fighting between both empires, with reinforcement fleets jumping in to feed the further conflict. Not to mention pirates who set traps for the player and mysterious races on the outer-edges of space. Its not cheap, but it is Shareware, so you can play the whole game for 30 days for free.
Ooh or you can go old school and get X-Wing or TIE Fighter.
Edit: And if you want to go old school, I'd have to give a shoutout to Escape Velocity Nova. Not sure if it would work on Windows 10, but it will always hold a special place in my heart.
You can play EV Nova on Windows: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
And plugins exists that make over Nova to play like classic and Override: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons/?category=Plugins
There is a Shareware version to try out for free.. or you can purchase the game for $30..
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
The Publisher is Mac centric, so there is no such thing as sales or lowering of prices there.
there are quite a few mods available.. look for the ones built for the PC.. or you'll have to find a file converter.. there are also 2 total conversions for the original Escape Velocity.. and Escape Velocity: Overide.. which were both Mac only releases.
@dragonfangxl, also (sorry I'm blowing you up), I get the feeling it's a resolution or driver issue of some sort, but that's about as far as I've gotten independently lol. I found this "WinNova Resolution Patcher"... let me know if you think it's relevant. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons?sort=submitted_on&order=desc&category=Utilities
Kind of an older game, but my favorite of all time space exploation game was EV Nova. Amazing story, fantastic modding community, and solid gameplay. Its still 30 dollars to this day, but its well worth it for the hours you'll put into it.
It's a little dated. That said, I have an extremely hard time playing old games, even if I have a lot of nostalgia for them. EV Nova I can play through every few years no problem.
Check some screenshots or video to see what you think. There might even be some mods to help freshen it up.
Escape Velocity: Nova is still a thing and runs on modern PCs. You can get modules (for free) that let you play the original EV and EV: Override using it.
As for more modern games that capture a similar feel, I think Starsector is the closest thing right now, but if you want EV, you can't really do better than the original.
EV:Nova is available for Windows
Why Ambrosia thinks $30 is still a fair price, when its been out for over a decade, I don't know.
I've asked them on several occasions of they had any plans to make a new Escape Velocity, or port any version to mobile, and they've said no :(
They still sell Escape Velocity Nova as well as Escape Velocity and Override (search for them).
Had a great time with Escape Velocity Nova.
Probably my favorite space game is Escape Velocity: NOVA. While it is 2d-ish the story and visuals are still pretty great. I loved the fact that you have some level of Newtonian physics because kiting backwards shooting people was literally the best strategy there was.
There was a bit of flying and jumping through space instead of non-stop action. Hope Valkyrie takes some notes from it.
Escape Velocity: NOVA (also with the Original, and Override games available as overhaul mods)
Sadly the publisher will forever have it for sale for $30.. no matter how old it is.
EV:NOVA was released in 2002.. I played the original when I was still in grade 6.
Though it is still rated as my favourite game of all time and will always re-install it every few years.. so many good mods made for that game.
Escape Velocity Nova By Ambisoft.
There isn't a bad game in the series. Plays on a modern MAC or PC with lifetime downloads. It is super easy to MOD and a crack community with loads of free extras.
Escape Velocity: Nova immediately comes to mind. One of my favorites and if you had a slightly older computer, Win98 would likely be the OS when it came out on PC(since nobody else I knew actually had Win2000).
>I've been looking for awhile for something similar and would be most interested in a 2D X3 style game
I missed this part, I wasn't thinking 2D.
Take a look at the Escape Velocity series, most specifically EV Nova. It's a 2D space RPG, and the main storylines you can take (there are many) are all really really great. Some of them are quite tricky to get into, others you will find yourself getting wrapped up in completely unintentionally. Lots of ships to fly, lots of star systems to explore. Trading is quite viable, although it doesn't have a proper dynamic market so its a bit bland. Empire building is definitely possible, not just through the plots but also individually if you so choose. It's not the primary focus of the game, but you can conquer planets and stations and they will pay tax to you. That's about as far as it goes though.
It's an old game, but it still looks alright. I'd really love to see another entry in the series someday.
It's not a perfect match but it sounds a lot like EV: Nova (or its predecessors, EV: Override and the original Escape Velocity). These are top-down space sims from the '90s and early '00s with equal shares of combat and trading. Shareware.
They had plenty of courier/transport/escort missions but nothing like towing planets (how would you even?). Buying a license for the game didn't unlock stronger ships, it just got rid of nag messages and IIRC removed an invincible raider faction that would randomly tell you to register before killing you. There were ships called dreadnauts but not juggernauts, I think. They had a "ranking system" but it didn't really affect gameplay and I don't recall what the top rank was called.
Great games, I recommend playing them all if you haven't before. Nova was the best of the three by far. Lots of mods available too, which are always fun.
Nice work OP!
This reminds me of a game series I used to play back in the day called the Escape Velocity series. This included Escape Velocity, Escape Velocity: Override, and Escape Velocity: Nova.
I loved the 2D, top down stuff, and kinda wish there'd be a multiplayer implementation of this type of game! Yeah, I've tried SPAZ, didn't really appreciate it for some reason.
Escape Velocity: NOVA. It's an "old" PC game where you pilot ships, do missions and blow stuff up. It's the very first game I was addicted to, as well as my first foray (is that right?) into PC gaming. You can get the free demo (or buy the game) at http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ . For any additional info, reply. (Is that a thing? I'm new to reddit.)
I'M ALSO SUGGESTING THIS IN "Plays...", AS IT MAY BE BETTER AS AN EDITED VIDEO.
Shareware, so techincally not free, but the Escape Velocity series. It's a few years old now, but the latest, EV Nova, can run on pretty much any computer. I wasted far too much time on this game.
Okay, threw the first season on while simultaneously booting up this - Escape Velocity Nova. Graphics matched well between the two. Nostalgia'd SO HARD. Thank you for finding Beast Wars. One of the best kids shows of its time.
Escape Velocity: Nova was released for Windows as well as Mac. A fan made a plug-in (I couldn't figure out how to link to the actual file, it's down near the bottom, labeled as EV Override for Nova.) that transformed the EV:Nova world into the EV:Override world, storyline and all. EV:Nova is one heck of a game, but I would recommend playing Override.
The game I am going to suggest is not a steam game however it is very life sucking. It is called EV Nova. Its a fairly old space RPG made by a little indie company called Ambrosia and is probably my fav indie game at all time. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
> in a space battle game (which i understand this to be), such a move being the only method of deceleration would be ridiculous.
Please believe me that I'm not ignoring your input. I am heavily considering many different concepts for both AI movement and player movement (which may be different). Especially on the player's side, the final decision for movement style will greatly weigh on exactly how "arcade-ish" the gameplay will be.
However, there are many precedents for exactly the sort of movement I'm describing, as far back as the venerable Spacewar and Asteroids. I'm quite partial to Escape Velocity myself, which also uses this control scheme. In fact, EV only brought one new change to the controls: Pushing the down-arrow rotates you to face opposite your movement vector, to facilitate reverse-thrust.
one less reason to purchase and one more reason to that shit.
And here's the thing, I think it's a good thing to pay, I enjoy giving my support to game developers. I got a warm fuzzy feeling paying notch for minecraft or ages ago when i bought EV NOVA and Avernum. And I'm even happy to pay for my favorite blockbusters like Morrowind or Oblivion etc.
But I can't abide these tightfisted business practices that screw the customer. When piracy is so widespread that you have to create international treaties and harsher laws; then perhaps it isn't piracy. It's more like a civil rebellion against bad business practices based on changing cultural views. Steam has been a step in the right direction [in my eyes] and EA's recall of its games is regressive business practices.
I'm almost certain OP is thinking of one of the Escape Velocity games. Here's a screenshot for reference.
