The problem with E.V. Nova: (Off-Topic)

by Chewbaccawakka , The Great Green Pacific Northwest!, Tuesday, August 18, 2015, 15:55 (3195 days ago) @ iconicbanana
edited by Chewbaccawakka, Tuesday, August 18, 2015, 16:10

Was that you could "beat" the game very easily. The very first time I loaded it up, I stumbled into the Velos quest-line within about 3 hours of starting the game. Another hour or so later and I now have the most powerful, indestructible ship in the galaxy that doesn't need to buy fuel or armaments... :(

It totally stripped away the sense of progression and empowerment. A sense that the first Escape Velocity provided with the steady upgrade to slightly more powerful ships with greater cargo capacity.

A couple years ago I thought I might have been too harsh on Nova, so I downloaded it again and gave it another go. Within two hours not only had I been exposed to the Velos quest-line (It seems to be nigh unavoidable!), but I also found a 2-jump trade route in the safest corner of space that offered near infinite profits! One hour of running the route (with ZERO trouble from pirates or anything else) and I had the largest Freighter in the game with a fleet of other freighters, making millions of credits every land-fall...

Nova just didn't have the staying power that the original Escape Velocity (and to an extent, EV: Overdrive) had. Thing I loved about Escape Velocity was that there wasn't any hand holding. They put you in the shittiest ship in the galaxy with no weapons and like 20 tons of cargo space and expected you to make a life of it. I died so many times (manual escape pods FTW!) and had to start over, it was great! EV never told you where you shouldn't go in the galaxy. If a place was frequented by pirates, you'd either find out by flying there and getting blown out of the sky, or you'd have somebody in a bar ask you to fly some cargo there... For a crazy high payout.

None of that seemed to transfer over to Nova, for me at least. Plus the combat was immensely unsatisfying in Nova. Weapons were either ultimately decimating, or did nothing at all to enemies. If you weren't destroying everything in your path, then you had to run from every engagement in order to survive. There was no middle ground it seemed. I personally chalk this up to a newer game-engine that wasn't developed by Ambrosia. I played hundreds of hours of Escape Velocity and hundreds of hours Overdrive. But Nova only held my attention for 10, maybe 20 hours. Wasn't my cup of tea. :/