Ship to ship combat should be the most exciting part of any space MMORPG, but
in VO they are disappointing. When you lock onto the enemy you are given a
targeting reticule that is supposed to show you the lead that you need to hit
your enemy, but it’s virtually impossible to hit anything at a distance. When
you close range the bots like to charge at you head on and then try and park on
top of you, so there’s not much room to show off your superior flight skills.
Battles often degrade into a game of chicken, with the loser being the one whose
shields give out first. You quickly learn which bots have a better ship than you
and to pick your targets so that you won’t be faced with a long haul back after
your ship is destroyed.
I wish that I could tell you about group play in the game, but I never had a
chance to try out this aspect of the game. There just aren’t a massive number of
players in this MMORPG. I only occasionally encountered other players passing
through the same sector or docked at the same base and they didn’t seem too
interested in interaction, so I spent a lot of time alone in the expanse of
space. There is PvP support in the game as I could read the game news in the
bases and saw items noting player bounties that were collected. Upon closer
inspection it looked like a lot of the same players were going back and forth
collecting bounties on each other. I didn’t play the game long enough to find or
become a part of this aspect of the game, but chances are most people won’t
either. There is just not enough here that is compelling enough to keep you
going long enough to build yourself up into a player killer.
Graphically the game is serviceable, but everything looks dated and lacking
in detail. Eve Online is two years old at this point and its graphics blow away
VO’s. Also, the lack of any control over the look of your ship is hard to accept
in an MMORPG. You can’t even select any of the colors that appear on your ship,
so you’re stuck with a stock minivan that you’ll have a hard time growing
attached to. Suffice it to say that there won’t be a line of toys launched for
VO’s unimaginative ships.
If you really, really must play a MMORPG space sim, then you should give VO a
trial run as it does deliver the very basics. Otherwise, it is hard to recommend
that you spend your MMORPG time and money on this one.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 60%.
Space is a vast and lonely place.
System Requirements: Pentium III 1 GHz; 256 MB RAM; 32
MB Video RAM; 200 MB Hard disk space.
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