Flying among the stars, fighting pirates, trading strange goods for fantastic sums of money: these are experiences hard to come by in most games, let alone real life. The few games that do allow for such activities are few and far between. Of those, you often hear people speaking of Elite with reverence, or perhaps of newer titles, like X3 or the arcady Darkstar One. Evochron Legends plays like all of these games and it plays like none of them. It’s a game that works hard to provide an unprecedented level of freedom to its players, in a universe whose rules are far more exacting than the average space flight sim.For anyone who has played one of these space sims (or any of the more combat oriented titles like X-Wing or Wing Commander), the fact that space flight is much like airplane flight is a given.
Spaceships handle like their earthbound counterparts, and no one minds, because that’s how these games are. Evochron Legends has a lot to brag about, but the thing that makes it stand out from its competitors is the way you negotiate and navigate through the universe. Instead of an instantly responsive magic ship, you pilot a vessel under the influence of Newtonian Physics (for the most part). This means that gravitational and momentum-based forces govern you and the objects around you. There are two modes of flight: flight aided by inertial dampers (for lack of a more recognizable term) is the closest to traditional in game space flight as you’ll get. The idea is that speed (velocity, really) within space in Legends is always relative. Thus, if you want to correct course, you not only need to fire the boosters necessary to turn your ship, if you want to still be going at the same “speed” (along the axis created by the direction you’re pointing), the vessel needs to compensate, leveling out your directional thrust. Since the computer does all of this for you, this type of flight feels like traditional space combat, but with slightly sluggish controls.
Where Legends gets interesting is when you turn off the inertial control system. From then on, you travel in whatever direction you were traveling before you turned off the system, at the same speed. You can turn around in any direction (a la Battlestar Galactica), and you will continue to travel in the direction you were originally facing, at the same speed. This is where the notion of relative velocity becomes key. You can modify your course by firing directional thrusters, but you can’t turn.This might not sound like much, but it makes traveling a joy. This should come as a surprise to a lot of space sim fans. The most annoying part of these games is the long trek between stations, jump gates, and missions: these journeys through space are so boring, most developers have implemented a time lapsing device in their games to shorten otherwise lengthy journeys.
Darke
said:
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I have never gotten into space sims, because of the steep learning curve. But, this looks like I might try to jump into it, the lack of great graphics helps me out because I have an old PC. Also, In a vast universe, everyone wants a sense of community. |
deckard47
said:
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If that's what you're looking or (community), then this is your game. It's as if you took a space sim and made it an MMORPG, but without the subscription fee, the annoying grind, and all of that other fun MMORPG stuff. In fact, I think it's a much better alternative to things like EVE. The community is very friendly and helpful, and there's a sense that (since it was literally made by one guy) the community has to stick together and be supportive. It's really nice. |
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