Evochron Mercenary - More like Escape Velocity or EVE Online?

The Game Room
1

I love Escape Velocity (and Naev), and I strongly disliked EVE Online. I’m interested in Evochron Mercenary, currently on sale on Steam, but as there’s no demo available, and it’s still $20, I’d like to find out more about the gameplay before I commit. I’m attracted to the co-op, as I could play it with my girlfriend.

Things I liked about Escape Velocity:
[ul]
[li]The combat was simple and fun[/li][li]The general freedom and simplicity of the gameplay[/li][li]The quests were interesting[/li][li]Getting around was easy and relatively fast[/li][li]It wasn’t an MMO[/li][/ul]

Things I disliked about EVE Online:
[ul]
[li]The combat was boring and repetitive[/li][li]The ridiculous amount of gameplay information (it was like D&D, but on steroids)[/li][li]It took forever to get around. EVE is noteworthy as being the first game I played that really captured how boring space travel would be most of the time[/li][li]It’s an MMO, and I tend to get easily addicted to MMOs[/li][/ul]

So for anyone who has played Evochron Mercenary, does the gameplay emphasize action and exploration like Escape Velocity or accounting and commerce like EVE Online?

2

So, there was actually a demo, it just wasn’t available on Steam. It’s downloadable from the developer’s website.

In my opinion, it’s more like EVE Online than Escape Velocity, unfortunately. It’s like a vastly simplified version of EVE, without all the stats and abilities crap that so turned me off. However, I feel that it retains EVE’s problems of uninteresting missions and annoyingly slow transportation (though less so than EVE).

I have to say though: I very much appreciate the developer providing a demo; demos have become all too rare in these days of massive development costs and tight schedules. It was great that they gave me the chance to try the game so I could discover that it wasn’t for me without spending $20 on it first.