When I was 7, my dad bought a Magnavox Odyssey from our local appliance store, and we hooked it up to the black and white TV in my parents' bedroom. (It was the only TV in the house.)

I only got to play when they were home, but not sleeping or busy. That worked out to Saturday afternoons, mostly.

If we ever get fully moved in, I'm going to have fire this one up.

We had one growing up (I honestly can't remember if it was the same one, or if a completely different one somehow made its way back to me), but I don't think we ever got it to work. I do remember taping the plastic sheets to the TV and pretending it worked, though :p

It was probably just missing some random A/V cable, but by the time I was old enough to try and figure it out we had already picked up an Atari 2600 and I forgot all about the Odyssey.

-Disciple

I remember when they were developing Nova. I was super excited, I had high hopes of an Escape Velocity MMO with all manner of job-differences. Sadly it wasn't to be.

You know what?! There needs to be a new Escape Velocity! Somebody needs to kickstart that posthaste!

Privateer 2 was a similar game if I recall. You played it from inside your cockpit so it was 3D. Think EV meets Tie Fighter.

You know what?! There needs to be a new Escape Velocity! Somebody needs to kickstart that posthaste!

Did you ever use any plugins for any version of EV? The original had one called the Empire Trilogy. Completely reworked the universe and plot of the original game. In my opinion it had MUCH better story-telling than vanilla EV. Really well-done plugin.

You had to enjoy reading to dig the story, but hell, I'm here because Marathon is my jam.

I literally conquered every system and every planet except Earth. It was the only one I didn't control. And believe me, I tried, for like 2 hours. Earth's defense fleet was just so massive I got bored and gave up. Actually I think I ran out of Torpedoes.

Tell me about it! I said the "entire galaxy" for ease of language. But the truth is I got every planet save Earth as well. I showed up in my Confederate Cruiser, with my fleet of 6 other Confed Cruisers, launched my 30 fighters and battled for hours and hours and hours and never could finish them all off. Part of me wonders if Ambrosia didn't simply program Earth to be unconquerable?

It totally stripped away the sense of progression and empowerment. A sense that the first Escape Velocity provided with the steady upgrade to slightly more powerful ships with greater cargo capacity.

A couple years ago I thought I might have been too harsh on Nova, so I downloaded it again and gave it another go. Within two hours not only had I been exposed to the Velos quest-line (It seems to be nigh unavoidable!), but I also found a 2-jump trade route in the safest corner of space that offered near infinite profits! One hour of running the route (with ZERO trouble from pirates or anything else) and I had the largest Freighter in the game with a fleet of other freighters, making millions of credits every land-fall...

Nova just didn't have the staying power that the original Escape Velocity (and to an extent, EV: Overdrive) had. Thing I loved about Escape Velocity was that there wasn't any hand holding. They put you in the shittiest ship in the galaxy with no weapons and like 20 tons of cargo space and expected you to make a life of it. I died so many times (manual escape pods FTW!) and had to start over, it was great! EV never told you where you shouldn't go in the galaxy. If a place was frequented by pirates, you'd either find out by flying there and getting blown out of the sky, or you'd have somebody in a bar ask you to fly some cargo there... For a crazy high payout.

None of that seemed to transfer over to Nova, for me at least. Plus the combat was immensely unsatisfying in Nova. Weapons were either ultimately decimating, or did nothing at all to enemies. If you weren't destroying everything in your path, then you had to run from every engagement in order to survive. There was no middle ground it seemed. I personally chalk this up to a newer game-engine that wasn't developed by Ambrosia. I played hundreds of hours of Escape Velocity and hundreds of hours Overdrive. But Nova only held my attention for 10, maybe 20 hours. Wasn't my cup of tea. :/

They sure did. I played hundreds of hours of Escape Velocity. Conquered the entire galaxy, heh.

I literally conquered every system and every planet except Earth. It was the only one I didn't control. And believe me, I tried, for like 2 hours. Earth's defense fleet was just so massive I got bored and gave up. Actually I think I ran out of Torpedoes.

- My first console was a Sega Master System with Wonder Boy in Monster Land (so good!) and After Burner.

Oh man! I had After Burner on NES, a game that helped me get into Fighter Simulators! (Even though it was just an arcade flyer :P)

- Ambrosia made the best Shareware games.

They sure did. I played hundreds of hours of Escape Velocity. Conquered the entire galaxy, heh.

Escape Velocity is still pretty amazing even now. Fantastic games!

For the record, while certainly not old, I remember a time before the internet. We had 28k internet when I was in middle school.

I got my first cell phone at 16, around the time that Motorola flip phone was the one to have (which I didn't get; Nokia brick for me).

Jeebus. I got my first cell phone at 29. It was one of these.

Whose number is that, Abraham Lincoln's?

Heh - I love how the display doesn't even bother with area codes. :) (That's not mine - I just googled for the phone I had.)

For the record, while certainly not old, I remember a time before the internet. We had 28k internet when I was in middle school.

I got my first cell phone at 16, around the time that Motorola flip phone was the one to have (which I didn't get; Nokia brick for me).

Jeebus. I got my first cell phone at 29. It was one of these.

Whose number is that, Abraham Lincoln's?