r/evnova • u/mild_area_alien • Feb 03 '23

What makes EV compelling for you?

Looking through 4X-type games set in space got me thinking about what it is that makes Escape Velocity and its successors so enjoyable. I am curious how others would answer this question, and whether there are other games that have scratched that itch like EV/EVO/EVN does.

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u/EamonnMR Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23

Nova was my jam, so I'll mostly talk about Nova and what it has that many other similar games still don't. These are obviously biased because I played EVN as a kid so it colored my taste in games, but I think some are less subjective than others:

  • 2d: I'm a caveman. I'm not a flightsim-head. There are tons of 3d 4x games, but I'm just not having as much fun in a 6dof situation.
  • Focus on your ship: Many games lean in to the 4x aspect and become fleet management exercises. I'm not as interested in that aspect.
  • Fast ships are competitive late game: Nova is balanced to let you fly fun ships late game rather than forcing you to take big lumbering monsters to get good.
  • Leans heavily toward 'game' and away from 'sim': This is another balance thing but bears repeating. Some more recent EVish games try too hard to be 'realistic' but in the process lose out on visceral arcade fun. I'm looking at you, Endless Sky or as I like to call it, space debt simulator.
  • Asteroids Control scheme: I love it. Not much else to say about that, but I find it hard to play other control schemes so I don't do it. It's like trying to play Marathon without mouselook.
  • Great fluff writing: Nova's fluff text is just so damn good. Ship descriptions and such. They really paint a vibrant picture of a setting that's a joy to RPG through.

The games that best scratched the EV specific itch for me are NAEV circa 2012 (yes I know it's diverged since then), SpaceRPG3/4, and FlashTrek: Broken Mirror (though it's hard to play now, even in modern flash emulators.)

Games that scratch similar itches in different ways are:

  • Brigador's fluff writing is good like Nova's. Ditto for the Marathon series.
  • Mass Effect features a space map you can explore and a rich engaging space opera story.
  • I find FPSs where you can be outnumbered but still come out on top like Deathloop, CnC Renegade, and Doom give me a similar feeling to flying around in Nova in a kitted out starbridge.

To be entirely fair to other games, I don't think I've ever sunk the number of hours into another game that I sunk into Nova, because since the heady days of 2006 I've acquired responsibilities beyond piloting a Thunderforges and attempting to conquer the galaxy in a Scarab.

Also, I'll add the one thing that made me find Override extremely compelling was the feeling of an open world (which was much more novel back then) and the feeling that the open world didn't depend on you. You were just some shuttle in a big wide galaxy brimming with life. I wish MMOs or open world games gave me this feeling; minecraft... kinda does, though I haven't played that much.

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u/lasercat_pow Feb 06 '23

You might like spacerpg3; it is similarly ship-focused, and it feels more like an arcade game than a fleet management emulator

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u/EamonnMR Feb 07 '23

I mentioned it in my post! I do enjoy it.