Everspace is a single-player space shooter that takes its primary gameplay influences from roguelike games, and rather than dungeon diving you are careening through stunning sectors of dangerous space. With a captivating story, massive 3D environments, fast-paced and brutal combat, Everspace does what few other titles could do, and that is make the incredibly frustrating and often cheaply challenging roguelike genre an interesting, gorgeous, and most importantly, an accessible genre to those gamers like me that are put off by roguelikes. Everspace, now fully released on Xbox One, is easily one of the best games of the year.
To start off, I absolutely and unequivocally despise the roguelike genre; it is cheap, pointless, and incredibly difficult to pull off well with regard for any form of coherent story. I would rather spend my time playing basketball, drinking flesh-dissolving acid, or playing a fighting game (I would choose the acid over basketball or a fighting game any day of the week, note that under no circumstances do I recommend the imbibing or mishandling of acid or other corrosive substances and cannot be held responsible if you or anyone were to do so) than spending any time in a roguelike.
That is, until Everspace came along.
The story is super sci-fi and awesome and is essentially the retelling, via the memory of clones, the story of the main character. It easily goes through and explains why it is that you are capable of essentially dying a gotrillion times and it is done well enough that it doesn't immediately land your plot in the "Under $5" bin at your local ramshackle bootlegger (or Walmart, which is almost as bad). In fact, it is "just sci-fi enough" to fit right into the idea that you are flying around in deep space, jumping through hyperspace portals, and smiting rogues and ne'er-do-wells all over the galaxy. It all fits together really, really well.
Once you hop into your little interceptor and take to the stars you are sort of warmed into the combat; the first sector or two is pretty simple, only a few rogue aliens or drones controlled by hostile artificial intelligence. After that brief intro to the concept of combat, all bets are off. One of my first "holy crap this is AWESOME" moments in Everspace was me just minding my business near a neutral faction cruiser and a half-dozen interceptors that were overseeing a mining / bio-fuel station when, low and behold my sensors start tartin' out and hollaring because some big dudebro's were jumping in system. I watched as these two small cruisers and about a dozen, maybe more, pirates jump in-system and just gun for the neutral faction. It was awesome. It was not so awesome deciding to go help the neutrals out. I died. Fast. But still. Soooo cool to see and experience. Everspace is absolutely full big moments like that or little moments like those times where you find yourself trying to get out of a dangerous situation to give your nanobots a chance to repair a damaged system.
There was one time where I was pulling a full-burn into an asteroid field with three bogies hot on my tail and I skimmed an asteroid so close that Gillette (the razor company) would be jealous, only to skirt it just enough to rip up behind two of the three, get a lock-on, fire away to turn one into space dust, then chaingun the second into oblivion while evading the third. Granted I evaded so hard that I cratered into a neighboring asteroid, but man was it AWESOME.
Rarely do I enjoy the often cheap thrills and overly-frustrating encounters that roguelike games bring to the fore, but with Everspace it is different. Outside of the severe lack of ship choice and customization options, Everspace has everything that an established space-jocky like myself wants, while still catering to the grander market. Fast-paced gameplay, challenging combat, blisteringly gorgeous visuals, all wrapped up in a story that is more interesting than many that have come out recently. Everspace on Xbox One has "Game of the Year" written all over it.
Game Information
Xbox One
Developer(s):
ROCKFISH Games
Publisher(s):
ROCKFISH Games
Genre(s):
Action
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
PC
PlayStation 4
Source:
Provided by Publisher
Article by Robert
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