Space: the final frontier. There's no shortage of games that try to capture the thrill of jetting through the galaxy, or conquering it. Fast-paced space action sims are a dime a dozen. The Escape Velocity series, on the other hand, is rather unique.

Escape Velocity is an open-ended simulation. It has story, it has endings, it has action, adventure, strategy, stealth, humor. Escape Velocity Nova is the third iteration of this concept, and it's easy to see that these guys know what they're doing.

The basic premise of EVN is fairly bare - you are a starship captain setting out from home to broader horizons, and you're free to choose to make a living however you might like. You can trade commodities, go on ferrying or shipping missions, or take "special" jobs. The basic goal of the game is to make money to improve your ship (or buy a new ship), but there are also half a dozen major storylines you have the chance to get involved in, each of which will change the face of the galaxy before it's over. And, there are a bunch of smaller storylines with different rewards, like new ships, or using hypergates.

Though there are new features and abilities, the basic gameplay hasn't changed much since the original Escape Velocity. The game is played from an overhead perspective (as if the galaxy was on a horizontal plane), and you can adjust your ship's acceleration and steering with different controls. Fire primary and secondary weapons, order escorts or wingmen, communicate and dock with ships in space. You can use your hyperdrive to fly from system to system, and land on planets in a system to get or complete missions, or buy upgrades and ships. Random ship placement when you arrive in a system (depending on the state of the galaxy and the system's political standing) gives space travel a fair amount of risk, since you never know when you'll find yourself between two warring fleets, or in the crosshairs of a pirate.

Although still two-dimensional and not extremely sophisticated by today's standards, Nova has a good bit of eye candy and a gripping visual appeal, especially when flying your spacecraft around and watching its booster jets flare in and out. Sound effects are mostly unchanged from the first game so long ago, and there is no music, so you're best off playing some tunes of your own during your jaunts through the galaxy.

Escape Velocity has always been about replay. You can try to stick straight with the storylines, but it's easier, and more fun, to at least occasionally go on sidequest missions or just explore. The galaxy is big, and filled with mystery. And even when you've mapped the entire galaxy, even when you've finished a story, the game never ends: you have as much time as you want to keep earning money for that giant battleship, which you can use to conquer planets if you so desire. There's an endless amount of things to do in EVN, if you're up to it. Not to mention the game's expandability and modifiability through plug-ins.

As with its two predecessors, Nova is fun to play, and has a lasting factor hard to compete with. If you like open-ended games, you'll probably like EVN. It's free for a certain trial period (with some limitations), so you may as well give it a shot.

Progress: Complete

Rating: Good