The Wikipedia free online encyclopedia defines Space Opera as "a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic adventure, interstellar travel, and space battles where the main storyline is centered around interstellar conflict and character drama." The author of that entry may or may not have played Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, but the definition certainly fits the game. It's an epic saga of exploration, first contact, fierce battles and desperate hopes.
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident tells the story of Marcus Cromwell, son of a famed starship captain who led an expedition through a wormhole and never returned. It was known as the worst space disaster in human history. Now a starship commander himself, Marcus heads out on what should be a fairly routine and mundane mission to Jupiter. Quickly, however, he makes some startling discoveries and soon finds himself embroiled in a struggle for the survival of humanity.
Nexus is a real time, tactical, space combat game. That's using a lot of words to say something pretty simple. You have a ship or a fleet of ships and you use them to destroy the enemy. This is not an RTS game. There are no resources to gather, no bases to build. The game's focus is always on the intricate tactics of ship-to-ship combat.
Each starship has an array of offensive and defensive possibilities. For instance, you could simply bash your way past the enemy's shields then drill holes in his hull until his vessel explodes in a spectacular fireball. Another approach might be to send a swarm of fighters to attack his engines and weapons, leaving him adrift and completely harmless. If close combat isn't your cup of tea, there are always long range weapons like the Ion Scream and Big Bang bombs (try not to be close when those go off, by the way).
At the start of each mission, you have a chance to update the weapons, shields and other equipment each ship in your fleet carries. Swap out a missile for a squadron of fighters or add a commando shuttle that can board enemy ships. Such flexibility in the equipment load out of a ship and the fact that you'll ultimately command nearly a dozen ships means that the course of a battle is almost entirely up to you. Leaving the enemy alive but limping or as cooling bits of slag drifting through space depends only on what kind of commander you want to play.
Gameplay involves directing your fleet's actions in battle. Such commands can be issued generically, such as instructing one or more ships to attack the shields of the enemy, or by explicitly controlling the targeting of each weapon on each ship. That one heavily armed ship can attack several enemies simultaneously is a pretty cool feature (not to mention handy).
As you might expect, the battles start out as pretty basic skirmishes between your mighty ship and a weak enemy or two. For these battles, high level commands (attack shields/attack hull) are fine. Deeper into the game, however, micromanagement is almost necessary as so many enemies attack at one time and they don't mess around. Some missions required several retries in order to succeed, but trust me: every mission is winnable. Luckily, you can pause the game quickly with the spacebar and issue commands at your own pace before un-pausing and watching the cataclysmic battle ensue.
Nexus is simply beautiful. The ships are exquisitely detailed, and the environments are breathtaking. When a ship is destroyed in the onslaught, the explosion is blinding. If you like eye candy, come and get it.
Not that the ears are left out. The sound effects, musical score and voice acting are all superb. No flat dialog readings or bad translations here. The music is reminiscent of blockbuster Hollywood movies. It is the perfect score to accompany fierce space combat.
I experienced several game crashes early on, but I can't rule out that they were caused by my tinkering with my video drivers trying to get another game to work. Once I stopped fiddling, everything ran smooth and stable. Your mileage may vary, but FYI the ATI Radeon drivers that worked for me were Catalyst version 4.11. (I'm not telling you to switch versions, but if you have stability problems, you might try it...as ridiculous as it is to have to downgrade drivers.)
There is a multiplayer aspect to Nexus offering several game modes including the ubiquitous 'death match'. The 'team escort' mode allows one team to defend a V.I.P. ship and another to try to destroy it. Also included is a cooperative mode that allows players to team up against a formidable AI enemy. There's even a bevy of mod tools so you can create your own missions and play them. The options are promising, especially co-op. Long live co-op!
You might notice that I haven't written much about the storyline. That's because I don't want to give it away. In games like this one, the story is vital to driving the game along and the story in Nexus does the job nicely. From a compelling story, to fierce and intricate gameplay to stunning visuals and sound, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is a game that really has it all.
I'm a thirty-something computer programmer. I live in Delaware, but I grew up in Arkansas in a tiny town of 2500. We didn't have video arcades. Heck, it was nearly an hour's drive to anything as sophisticated as a Wal*Mart. Needless to say, my exposure to video games as a child was somewhat limited.
In the mid 80's, I cut my teeth on a used Atari 2600 bought at a flea market and a handful of games like Space Invaders and Pac Man. I was hooked in a blink. In the decades since, I've become a big fan of many genres of games. From first-person shooters to role-playing to strategy and everything in between. The only games that categorically don't interest me are sports games.
The easiest way for a game to win me over is to have a gripping story. I'll forgive a lot in a game that grabs me and keeps me interested. The inverse is true, too. If a game does not have a killer story, its gameplay had better be pretty darn compelling to make up for it. That doesn't happen very often
