By Jim Rossignol on March 31st, 2008 at 7:48 am.
To celebrate the fact that I spent the last week lounging about playing Sins of A Solar Empire and Eve Online we thought we’d have something of a themed week. The theme is: SPACE! We came up with this partly because we have a bunch of space-game content we need to offload on you at the same time, and partly because vast stretches of nothingness between giant white-hot nuclear furnaces is somehow the most interesting thing imaginable.
To kick off, because it’s early and I’m too groggy to finish this Mass Effect preview, I’d like to direct you to the virtual space photography of one of the RPS readers, RoBurky, whose Eve Online screenshot collection far surpasses even the official releases by developers CCP. That image up there is one of his, and you can see many more excellent interstellar snaps just here.
31/03/2008 at 08:21 KBKarma says:
I would start screaming “FIRST POST! FIRST POST! LOVE ME!!!”, but
a) that’s rude, and
b) no-one ever will ( :( ).
Space games are MADE to have screenshots taken of them. I have a folder in my My Pictures folder with the twenty or so screenshots I took of Freelancer (I got distracted by about 40 other games before I finished, and thus never did. Again).
Thanks for the link.
31/03/2008 at 08:31 Slappeh says:
This makes me want to play eve again.
31/03/2008 at 08:37 moromete says:
Finish Freelancer man, it’s a good game, then move on Descent Freespace and the sequel…
31/03/2008 at 08:56 roryok says:
The word ‘nebulous’ always makes me smile.
We had a fairly ignorant and self-important film lecturer in college who submitted a pitch he wrote to a scriptwriters forum to get some feedback on it. One of them suggested that ‘the plot is a little nebulous’
The guy flew off the handle. His response (which he proudly showed us in class one day) was “I don’t f**king know or care what nebulous means you pr**k”
31/03/2008 at 09:14 Phil says:
Are you planning retrospectives or somesuch thing on either Star Control 2 or Homeworld?
Or how Iain M. Banks optimistic, mind melting space opera vibe seems to have influenced game space?
31/03/2008 at 09:23 Jim Rossignol says:
I’ll do a Homeworld retrospective if I have enough time, but no promises. That one might have to wait.
31/03/2008 at 09:40 Seniath says:
Right, I’ll be the first to say it; My god, it’s full of stars.
Excellent screenshots Ro. If I wasn’t piled under a mountain of work I’d be sorely tempted to reactivate my account. EVE is one of the few games I want to play just by looking at it.
31/03/2008 at 09:50 Him says:
Shall we assume an obligatory link to HLP & the FSO project is inbound this week?
31/03/2008 at 10:04 Sir Podder Raleigh says:
Isn’t RPS a space theme’d site anyway….?
31/03/2008 at 10:05 Jim Rossignol says:
It’s a rock, paper and shotgun themed site.
31/03/2008 at 10:18 tom says:
Aw, for a minute I got excited and thought you were going to do a 6 page retro feature on nebulus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=971dFpAhZCk
oh and homeworld…. mmmmmmm
I never got why eve wasnt made to look quite as colorful…
31/03/2008 at 11:51 Mal says:
I’m quite looking forward to getting reacquainted with my joystick (fnarr) when Jumpgate Evolution emerges.
31/03/2008 at 14:07 Steve says:
Oh no, I hate space games. Well, see you in a week guys!
31/03/2008 at 14:15 Kieron Gillen says:
This tag is your friend.
KG
31/03/2008 at 16:11 Noc says:
Goddamnit.
I haven’t played EvE in a while. Thumbing through these has awoken a burning longing in me, long dormant. But I can’t afford to get back into . . . buh . . . gah . . . /anguish.
Still, it’s interesting to see a game documented with the same sort of approach that photographers use in the real world. A lot of the pictures read as war photography to me, only instead of grisly pictures to highlight the horrors of combat they’re screenshots full of awesome.
31/03/2008 at 17:26 fluffy bunny says:
Space week, eh? Does that mean you’re going to review the latest game from Derek Smart? :-p
31/03/2008 at 18:48 ElGuapo says:
Can someone tell me in what context those corpses are floating naked in space? Are they dead pilots? Jettisoned cargo?
31/03/2008 at 19:38 lungfish says:
i’ve been thinking of trying eve out some time soon (must wait until i graduate however, deadlines coming up), those screen grabs have certainly piqued my interest enough to see what it’s like, although from what i’ve read it seems to have received a very mixed response, would i be able to experience enough to form a good opinion in the trial period or not?
31/03/2008 at 19:38 roBurky says:
ElQuapo: They are dead player pilots from destroyed escape pods.
31/03/2008 at 21:38 Rocktart says:
That’s the sort of gallery that PicLens was made for.
31/03/2008 at 22:39 Orange says:
Superb screenshots.
31/03/2008 at 22:50 JayeRandom says:
So, do all EVE pilots fly naked, then?
01/04/2008 at 10:18 Janek says:
I know I do.
And in the game!
01/04/2008 at 10:33 roBurky says:
In the fiction, the players are superpilots who immerse themselves into womb-like pods to control spaceships with their mind.
So yes, they fly naked.