I recently downloaded Eve Online.
The newbie tutorial took me about three hours to complete, which is, by far, the longest newbie tutorial I have come across. I was getting bored by the end of it, and even when I did finish it, I felt that many things were still unexplained.
The graphics are very nice, though the planets could use some work. The lighting works well, and the warp special effect is cool. It is a very pretty thing to look at, though I do wish it had anti-aliasing capabilities (maybe I have just not found them).
There is no collision detection, which is a major frustration to me -- I routinely end up flying straight through planets and space stations without the least concern (well, except the first time). I would love it if the planets etc. actually had gravity and sucked you towards them if you were not careful.
The skill system is weird -- it works via real-world time, so you train even while not playing. That is good and bad. It is good because it means casual players like me can feel like I am not being left behind, but very bad because it is literally impossible to catch up to the people who have been playing the game for years.
The universe in the game is, well, exceedingly huge. Even the newbie ship has no problem going 250 meters per second, but at that speed, it seems to take forever just to approach one of the giant space stations from a nearby planet. Fortunately, all ships also have a warp drive, which is basically a "go very fast without controls" engine that shoots you from different planets and moons in a solar system in a relatively short period of time (with pretty effects). Going from solar system to solar system, though, would still take days, even with the warp engine, so they provide fancy star gate stations in every solar system that turn you into a beam of light and shoot you to another solar system instantly. The star gates are never next to each other in a solar system, though, so to get from one to another, you have to warp. Between warping to the next star gate, and then slowly approaching it, and then activating it, jumping multiple solar systems can take quite a while, and going from one end of the galaxy to the other would take an extreme amount of time. Fortunately, there is an autopilot, that figures out the best path to a destination (with the help of some suggestions, like to choose the safest or shortest route). This gives you the chance to get up and do the dishes while you travel.
Combat is almost entirely automated -- you lock on, you choose to orbit, you raise your shields, and then you click "fire" and the person with the better ship wins. Not much else to it.
The number one downside to me, though, is that you cannot get out of your ship. I would love to be able to get out and chat with other people in a bar on some space station -- but nooooooo... that, and the collision detection and the skill system almost make me want to quit.
I still enjoy it, though, for one simple reason -- it is a casual game I can enjoy while doing other things (such as programming, chores, TV, etc.). That sounds silly, but it is a nice to be programming, and occasionally check on my ship and do some things, and then go back to programming. Will I play this game long? Probably not.
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