Mankind has long looked to the stars for inspiration, guidance and solace. Long before the dawn of modern science, that twinkling blanket of dark majesty has planted seeds of wonder in the minds of viewers of the night sky. For some the stars were the homes of the gods, for others it was a map to guide both ships and lives… And a few probably thought they were simply the holes in the sky where the rain came in.
Of course, once the human race finally gets out there in the distant future, the truth will be far less whimsical. Folk will still wonder at the night sky, but if modern science fiction is anything to go by, they’ll likely be wondering what kind of weapon of mass destruction would be best to take down an enemy capital ship or whether there’s more profit in asteroids or piracy.
A Beginning is a Very Delicate time…
In video games, this particular theme has long been popular. Space exploration and combat is quite possibly the most open-ended gaming concept out there. Spacewar!, one of the very first video games made in 1962, saw two players attempting to destroy one another with lasers whilst maneuvering to avoid the gravitational well of a central star. Then came Asteroids, Galaxians, Defender and many more.
The passing decades saw technology advance to allow for increasingly elaborate space games allowing the player to immerse themselves in childhood fantasies of being an astronaut or a space cowboy. The games industry saw trailblazers rise and fall and the advent of the internet triggered an explosion of massively multiplayer space games… didn’t it?
Well, no. Inexplicably, the gaming universe has been surprisingly light on triple-A open-universe space games.
Until now.
At Last. The Gathering…
After a decade of unopposed domination of the online sci-fi space-sim genre, EVE Online will finally have some challengers for its crown. But they’re not just any contenders – each one comes from the stable of a former title holder and ex-champion in their own right.
It’s sad to note that the two big franchises of the modern sci-fi era don’t have a representative in the sandbox arena.
Star Trek Online is an on-rails theme park rather than an open-world sandbox.
Star Wars: Galaxies was sadly cancelled and its slayer, Star Wars: The Old Republic, is just WoW in Jedi robes and barely qualifies as a space sim, let alone a sandbox.
So let’s take a look at the competitors in the Ultimate MMO Sci-Fi Sandbox Showdown.
And in the blue sector… [Check out the first contender]
Article Index
Page 1: Sci-Fi Sandbox Showdown: The Battle for the Stars
Page 2: Contender – EVE Online
Page 3: Contender – Elite: Dangerous
Page 4: Contender – Star Citizen
Page 5: Conclusions
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Published: Dec 14, 2012 06:47 pm