The latest Jumpgate Evolution trailer seems to confirm that the game is out in June. The beta sign up pages are live on the main site, although there’s no open beta yet in progress. The trailer is interesting, showing loads of in-game footage, including some of those capital ship takedown battles that NetDevil have been talking up over the past few months. For more on this interesting-looking space-flight sequel, take a look at our interview with the developers.
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Ooh, I like the look of this. Think I’ll give it a shot when it’s out.
I’ve been signed up for the beta since last year. Glad to hear some more on it!
I am beta signed up yes!
Yes but do you actually fly your ship or is it similar to Eve flying?
One game that got capitol ship and station destruction right was Hegemonia. When a large ship was destroyed, it didn’t just suddenly go boom (like above.) It was an epic event where the explosions went on for a while, the ship slowly broke apart and debris went everywhere.
So if a space RTS from 2002 can have such awesome destructible entities, how come we still have ships that go ‘pop’ as soon as they get destroyed (like EvE or the above video?)
You actually fly your ship, Elite/Fresspace style.
Ugh, the graphics look pretty bad in some places
Blocky pixelated cap ships that jump at you from 2002
Good ship designs are hard, but necessary. EVE looked better when it launched almost 6 years ago
ooohh, this looks nifty. Why have I never heard about this before? Signed up in the vague hope of getting an email.
That trailer is VERY Battlestar Galactica, especially the music.
Looks like a game i’d like to play except for the fact that i have a hard time accepting the pay monthly to play scheme.
Btw: Have you noticed that the demo for Empire:TW goes live on Steam at 4pm GMT? Yay!
Except for the lack of excessive camera shake. Otherwise very much BSGish.
More gaming for my joystick. I approve!
In 1687, English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton published Principia, which hypothesizes the inverse-square law of universal gravitation. In his own words, “I deduced that the forces which keep the planets in their orbs must be reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve; and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the Earth; and found them answer pretty nearly.”
In 2009 games still show videogames using the engines to mantain the velocity ….in the vacuum of space.
@Tei: I lol’d.
This does look a little boxy and has a very distinct whiff of 2002 about it; what exactly does it do that separates it from Freespace?
@Tei: I’m pretty sure you can fly using a Newtonian physics based system if you want.
Yea, but on this video, the spaceships have the engines launching ionized particles… Since theres no air in space, If you use the engines like that, you will be accelerating. This is scientifically incorrect too much, for my likings.
@Tei: The game does utilise Newtonian physics, therefore you could blast forwards, turn off engines, rotate and kill while still maintaining momentum. Engine trails just look cool.
Been waiting best part of a year for the beta to begin. Even if it does start tomorrow, will that be enough time to properly beta the game?
It’s a ubiquitous visibility safety feature from the Space version Volvo that now rules the galaxy ok?
ohhhthis may sway my love for internet spaceships
So, erm, how much is a joystick for a PC these days?
Haven’t used one at home since… yes…. the magnificent Quickshot II! For playing Elite! On the ZX Spectrum!
… those were days. Not sure about the definite article, but certainly days.
Tei I bet you’re the life and soul of all the parties you don’t go to.
Looks pretty swish, and yeah the trailer looked very BSGish.
I loved the original Jumpgate, and have high hopes for this. Glad that RPS are covering it, too, as Jumpgate was before it’s (always on broadband) time and suffered from low population. Hopefully it’ll do something to balance the online gap for playable fun space-shooter that Eve has highlighted by being deep, impenetrable and vast.
… and now I can’t go back and edit my random use of the possessive apostrophe. Bah.
Looks a LOT like Eternal Silence, mod for HL2 that’s been consuming all my free time lately.
Hurrah! The website lists UK and EU as *seperate*!
Sound the giant obnoxious trumpet of Blighty!
Doesn’t list Australia, or even Asia/Asia-Pacific. How disappointing!
Hmm, I guess I have to read more about it, this is the first time seeing the game in action and I’m simply not impressed with the action, textures, animation.
I’ll have to read more on what actual game play this game has but this just seems like an arcade style space sim (see freespace) that they shoved into an MMO package.
I’ll reserve final judgement till I read more about the game.
Ryan: JG Evolution is an update/remake/sequel to the original Jumpgate, released ages ago, which was – to all extents and purposes – Elite Online.
You fly around space, shoot stuff, trade, shoot more, buy, sell, shoot, fly and shoot again, and it worked brilliantly. The only real problem was that it came out in the era of 56k/ISDN connections, and looked pretty aged even when it first came out.
So long as they fix the problems, this could be a real hit.
The graphics look pretty fine to me. It’s hard to criticize texture detail on a YouTube video! Check out the screenies on the website.
Tei, there’s a game out there made just for you called Orbiter (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/) which models space flight to exacting detail. It’s boring as hell but that’s the price you pay for slavish dedication to realism.
Orbiter is a win, if only for running the saved demo of a Sputnik launch in real time on a huge screen on a loop.
Trying to control any part of it yourself is a nono though.
You can switch between two ‘modes’ of flight in JGE.
Dampeners either on or off.
‘Dampeners off’ uses a near newtonian flight model called DANCER, which is used in the original Jumpgate.
With ‘Dampeners on’ it is more akin to Freelancer or X-Wing.
Dampeners on was introduced to make JGE more accessible.
For anyone wanting to know more about Jumpgate Evolution, the Wiki is a good place to start.
http://jumpgateevo.wikia.com/wiki/Jumpgate_Evolution_Wiki
Reminds me of I-War 2 (still one of the best spacey-flying-shooty games ever, and despite being very old now, it has barely aged at all – graphics are even pretty good by modern standards), where you used a fairly X-Wingish flight model by default, but it was all an illusion. That wasn’t drag you were feeling – it was your thrusters making you FEEL like it, and if you switched the camera to outside your ship, you could see them firing.
You could turn off this ‘assisted flying’ model and suddenly you were floating completely free, with nothing to stop you. It became a dizzing, nightmarish system in a single buton press, and it was BRILLIANT.