adam reeve

(or “How I lost all my spare time into an interstellar vortex”)

So I’m not really a fan of the whole swords, sorcery, elves & wizards scene. I quite like the LotR movies, but the last thing like that I actually read was probably The Hobbit when I was 9. Given that, I’d pretty much given up on the whole MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) genre, since an advanced degree in spellcasting seems to be a prerequisite to most of them.

That was, until a colleague gave me a free trial of Eve Online (well, in reality it took about a year before I actually installed it, but I digress). If you’re an old school UK gamer like myself you’ll recognise the immortal name Elite, a space trading and warfare game written by Ian Bell and Dave Braben in 1984 for the BBC Micro series of computers. To say it was massive is a serious understatement, it’s not often a single game popularizes an entire hardware platform. It introduced gamers to simple commodity trading systems (as used now in the ever popular freeware game Dope Wars), and 3D graphics. The fact that you could fly around in your little ship in a huge universe, all the while listening to a beepy rendition of The Blue Danube, was…well…addictive.

So anyway, in my formative years I played a lot of Elite on my step dads computer. A lot. And ever since I’ve been looking for the new Elite. Many have tried, all have sucked. However, I think Eve is the closest yet, and it feels good.

The basic premise of the game is that you are a pilot in a human-populated area of space consisting of thousands of star systems, at some point in the distant future. You start with a small amount of money, some skills, and a crappy space ship. Where you go from there is up to you. Do you attack pirates (or indeed other players), and loot their ships to upgrade your own? Do you go off in the depths of space to mine for precious minerals? Do you form a corporation with other players and become a manager for others who do your dirty work? Do you open a factory turning the minerals sold to you by others into machinery? All these and many more options are available to you. As your wealth increases you will be able to buy new and better ships, and equip them with all manner of crazy attachments (most of which seem to be designed to destroy things in ever more rapid ways). You can also play the markets – the game contains not one, but several commodity markets where you can trade. These feature full historic market data so you can figure out a good price, and an order matching system remarkably similar to that used in the London Stock Exchange. The fact that there are many seperate markets means that arbitrage (buying something cheaply in one market and selling it for a profit in another) is possible, should you happen to swing that way. Be warned though – there are hundreds of commodities to price-track, and as the markets are arranged geographically there will be some travel involved.

That brings us on to the game environment and mechanics. The graphics are, simply put, stunning. It’s not something you can run on an old computer, but at 1600×1200 with 4xAA and 32-bit colour it looks breathtaking (screenshots). The interface is based around many small control windows which are used for different aspects of the game. For example, one window shows the contents of your ship’s cargo hold, another your financial records and another lets you talk to other players nearby. It’s all very well designed, fast, clean and generally a pleasure to use. When in flight you have a small, icon based control panel for your ship which allows you to navigate, activate weapons, etc. This also displays the status of your onboard systems, such as the engine, shields etc. Keep an eye on those, because if you take took much damage from an irate pirate you may need to jump in that escape pod and head to the nearest station. Don’t worry too much though – that insurance policy you had the foresight to take out earlier will pay for a new ship!

So it’s fair to say I like it. I’m still within the first 14 day trial, so I can’t really say for how long it will keep my attention, but it could be a while. The game has a good tutorial to get new players started, which is always important. Also important to pilots just starting out is that although some players have been in the game for years and amassed vast wealth and power, the game is structured so that you don’t feel intimidated and can have plenty of fun flying around in your little ship (until you finally save up enough for that Cruiser you’ve had your eye on!).

Recommended!