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Well, perhaps not yet “born” yet, per se, but it’s definitely somewhere in its second trimester and we have gotten quite a clear ultrasound at this point of NETdevil’s high concept sci-fi space shooter MMOG, Jumpgate: Evolution. While the game is currently in a solid alpha-build stage, what we’ve been allowed to see thus far has been impressive and looks to be a innovative and creative addition to a pair of suffering genres, namely the Space-Simulation and MMORPG genres, to be precise. With the last great space sims being as far back as 2005’s X3: Reunion or 2007’s Spaceforce: Rogue Universe (although nothing has been able to quite top Microsoft’s 2001 opus Freelancer in this gamer’s opinion in terms of sheer playability or longevity -- Freelancer has been kept very much alive to this day by an active modding community and several privately run multiplayer servers) and space-based MMO’s being rather nonexistent with the exception of CCP’s EVE Online and the general MMO market at large being dominated by Blizzard’s powerhouse World of Warcraft, both species of games seem to need a little something to come along and breathe some new life in.

There’s no way to accurately discuss Jumpgate: Evolution (or JG:E if you don’t like typing out entire words) without mentioning it’s 2001 predecessor Jumpgate: The Reconstruction Initiative (or JG:C for Jumpgate Classic), a PC MMOG that first brought the infinite vastness of space to the massively multiplayer genre. JG:C featured several unique ideas that helped it find it’s niche upon release, the most notable being the “Newtonian” space flight physics, essentially meaning that piloting your spacecraft was alot like, as one JG:E wiki editor put it, driving on ice, accurately simulating what it might be like to steer a ship in a vacuum with no gravity. It’s a bit tough to explain, but basically don’t expect to make any 90 degree turns at high speed and it can take up to two full kilometers to go from full throttle to a complete stop. Unfortunately, JG:C was plagued by a steep difficulty curve and sub-par graphics (even for it’s 2001 release), however it’s creative approach to space flight have given it an active user base to this day despite an overall lack of traffic that led to the merging of what started as several servers into one “global” server. Now, enough about the past. I’d first heard of JG:E through a few web forums while looking for something prettier to replace Freelancer as my main “blow shit up” space sim, and upon viewing their official website at www.jumpgateevolution.com, I was forced to run to my kitchen to grab a hand towel to stop the constant flow of drool.

It’s clear that JG:E won’t suffer from it’s predecessor’s fugly graphics. Also, it’s graphically scaleable to run on systems as small as 800MHz processor and 32MB of video memory - without pixel shaders.

JG:E’s lead creative director Hermann Peterscheck has been quoted as denouncing the design decisions of games like EVE Online in which space is dark and empty (and, in EVE’s case, repetitious and actually quite boring) by saying that “space should be beautiful”, and by God, is it ever. JG:E’s high-contrast and colorful vision of space makes for intense eye-candy and serves as quite an immersive backdrop for the games action-based play system… and by action-based I mean that JG:E provides innovation by throwing away the character classes and pen-and-paper style dice rolls for hit chance and damage persistent though every successful MMO to date in favor of a “twitch based” live combat…so basically this MMO will be based more on player skill rather than how much time you have to repeatedly farm Karazhan for the leetest gear for your class. That’s right, no action bars, no skill trees, no lengthy cool downs, just frantic reticule-based shooting and real-time dogfights. Player skill is even required for tasks such as docking your vessel at a station, a procedure during which player ships must approach at the correct angle and velocity to physically pilot their ship into a station’s docking bay.

I’ll be sitting, parked and giggling as I watch newbie pilots crash into stations like these while learning to properly dock.

The flight model found in JG:E will be a reworked version of the JG:C physics described above, allowing for full vessel control including pitch, roll and yaw, with thruster control allowing for the obvious forward thrusters and afterburners as well as strafing thrust for left, right, up and down. JG:C’s Newtonian flight physics are in full effect, allowing players to slide around targets and even fly backwards, however this time there is a switchable “inertial dampener” system in place that give things a more “arcade-like” or “stickier” feel for novice pilots or pretty much anyone that needs to do some tight maneuvering, and given JG:E’s wide array of diverse locales containing hazards such as dense asteroid belts or disused ship foundries (rife with broken-down husks of massive capitol vessels), it’s this gamer’s opinion that you’ll find yourself switching them on and off pretty regularly depending on the current terrain you need to navigate. Another solid win in the control department is JG:E’s full support of analog joysticks and HOTAS (hands-on-throttle-and-stick) flight control setups, allowing for an incredibly genuine and totally immersive experience.

JG:E demoed on a Saitek X52 HOTAS system. You may want to mute the music.

While the details of the character creation system are still firmly placed under wraps by the developer, it is known that players will be divided into three separate factions: the industrious yet corrupt Solarian Commonwealth, the firmly religious Quantar Paths and the militaristic Octavian Empire, with several NPC-only factions like the secretive Hyperial Protectorate, the technologically advanced Anamath (believed to be extinct), the overtly hostile Conflux and a pirate faction known only as The Infernals. Each faction hails from a separate section of space and feature, yep, you guessed it, even more eye-candy in the form of highly varied star system design and vastly different tech. These three playable races set the stage for some interesting PvP and RvR action in the form of open-world Player vs. Player skirmishes as well as instanced battles based on flag capturing games and, my personal favorite, a squad based “destroy the other team’s battleship” game who’s name implies that it’ll be simply…intense. As for RvR (or Realm-vs.-Realm, a concept known well to Dark Age of Camaelot and Warhammer Online players), players will be able to seize control of sector control bases in contested systems, claiming that system for their faction and gaining themselves and their compatriots certain bonuses while in the sector until the base is either destroyed or assaulted and reclaimed by an opposing army. Another original gameplay mechanic devised for JG:E is called “soft grouping” where multiple players engaging the same hostile target will gain experience and loot regardless of whether the participating players are “partied”. This simple idea shines in the fact that it subliminally encourages comradery between players through rewards…I can’t even count the times that I’ve had to watch my character in WoW get crushed by an NPC monster as members of my own faction simply run past without so much as a second glance or even an offer for assistance, or alternatively having quest-related creatures “ninja-ed” from my party by members of my own force.

Large-scale fleet engagements await you in the universe of JG:E.

Thus far, NETdevil has been allowing information regarding this unique title to trickle from their offices at a painfully slow rate, with even the release date slated to an ambiguous “Q1 2009” with a closed beta launching “sometime soon” (The beta can be applied for on their official site -- although with keys being doled out in clusters of 1000 and nearly 150,000 applications as of mid-November the chances of getting into the closed beta are slim at best). From what we’ve seen so far, JG:E is shaping up to be possibly the best new MMO released in some time. Combining furious action with RPG style progression and some impressively realistic space flight, Jumpgate: Evolution gets my vote as THE title to watch for in the coming months. Look for my forthcoming full review either a few weeks after the game launches, or earlier if I can finagle my way into the beta. For more information, visit their official site at www.jumpgateevolution.com or their meticulously updated wiki at www.jumpgateevo.wikia.com.

I’ll leave you with an in-game footage reel to wet your space battle appetite. Enjoy.

Note: Thanks to IGN.com for hosting a whole ton of images with handy-dandy embedding HTML.

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