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Fantastic!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 59 / 59
Date: March 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Nexus:TJI combines the very best aspects of role playing, RTS, and strategy gaming into a uniquely wonderful gaming experience.

Probably the best way to describe Nexus:TJI is 'Babylon 5' meets computer gaming. A mix of Homeworld and Star Fleet Command is another apt analogy. You command anywhere from a single vessel to a sizable fleet in an amazing amalgamation of RTS and tactical gaming. The gameplay, cinematics, and world are similar to the look and feel of `Babylon 5' including the Newtonian-based space combat. Yet it also combines the best aspects of space combat in `Battlestar Galactica' (the new series), `Star Wars', and `Star Trek'. Anyone with an interest in space combat will be very pleased with this game.

The graphics in the game are outstanding. The ship models are very well done but the 'space terrain' you fight in is even better. Asteroids, planets, sun flares and more are marvelously rendered with great lighting and shading. Sound is also well done. The story is solid and interesting and offers more depth if you care to read the diary entries and character bios. Voice acting throughout ranges from good to excellent.

Gameplay starts with bits of the story and a mission briefing. You are then left at the Starmap to outfit your ships, check on crew, read diary entries (more story plot), and generally get yourself ready for action. As an indicator of the overall quality of the game this section is almost a great game in its own right. The Starmap lets you literally explore the Universe like an astronomer. You can browse around solar systems and look at planets and moons. The game begins in our own solar system so you'll have some familiar surroundings from which to start.

Once you leave the Starmap and start your mission the main game begins. The game plays out in real-time but you can pause the game to give orders at any moment. What is so unique is that the game blends three levels of detail into an amazing and seamless whole. At the highest level it is similar to a regular RTS game (without the resource gathering) where you can just command your units as you would in Homeworld. But there is also another deeper level where you can exert direct control of certain units and do things such as launch fighters, assign specific target points, dictate posture, etc. Yet there is a third level to the game where you can dig one step deeper and take very detailed control of certain units and assign energy distribution, repair systems, control detailed movement orders, and much more. Best of all is that you can play the game successfully at the level YOU enjoy most. On occasion you'll need to dig down (or with the larger battles back up) but mostly you can play at the level of detail and control you enjoy. These multiple levels really set the game apart from previous space combat games. You are not stuck at one level but can move up and down in detail as appropriate.

All of the various ship types (fighters, capital ships, alien ships) and actions (boarding actions, energy management, and more) you would expect (and want) in this type of game are present. The ability to pause the real-time action makes Nexus:TJI a great tactical combat game that rewards sound tactics and understanding of your units' strengths and weaknesses and not just an exercise in how fast you can click. The AI is quite good and certainly doesn't do anything overtly foolish. The game's first couple of missions ease you into play and provide tutorial tips along the way. This is almost enough to play the game but you'll be best served spending some time with the well done manual as you it details some wonderful features not discussed in the in-game tips.

The game interface is a study in elegance and efficiency. Most of it is immediately intuitive and the rest easily digested after a read through the manual. There is an incredible amount of information displayed in a clean, useful fashion that greatly adds to the enjoyment and atmosphere of the game. You can easily command your ships, see ship status, and information on enemy ships. Many of your actions can be assigned directly with the interface without the need to hunt around for particular ships in the 3D display.

So far the game has been very stable and runs just fine at high resolution with full effects.

If all of that wasn't enough Nexus: The Jupiter Incident also includes Mod Tools that lets you create not only new missions but whole new ships and solar systems! I have little doubt we will see many player-created missions available on the Web. This feature gives Nexus:TJI incredible play life. Considering the quality and depth of play I suspect we will see some of the best experiences come from Mod created missions. With luck the designers will produce not only expansions but mission and/or world packs as well.

If you have any interest in sci-fi combat games or the space action in movies/series such as `Babylon 5,' `Battlestar Galactica,' `Star Wars,' or `Star Trek' you simply can't miss this game!

Well Worth the Budget Expense

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 32 / 35
Date: March 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Space Sim fans take heart. There is a new entry well worth your time and expense. Nexus TJI is a great play. As a vet space simmer dating back to WCI, I highly recommend this outing. Not quite Homeworld I but certainly better than HW 2. Intense graphics, captivating storyline and awesome capital ship battles. That's right, it's all capitals here (no frenzied fighter action) but very satisfying nonetheless. Battles move slower and are more strategic. Voice acting is very good (background music could have been better ala HW I). Overall, I would highly recommend you take on this space adventure and enjoy the BIG ship/fleet combat and supurb graphics.

Not a Homeworld clone

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first saw screenshots of Nexus:TJI, I figured it was just another Homeworld-type game. Since I rather enjoyed Homeworld, I proceeded to buy it. For those that are expecting Nexus to be that, you're in for a surprise, though not necessarily an unpleasant one.

The most notable difference between the two games is that you don't harvest or build anything in Nexus. You're assigned a few ships (I've never seen more than 10 under my command) and can usually configure them before each mission. Oftentimes you don't even start with all of them, but receive the remainder as reinforcements after an objective is completed. Lost ships are replaced automatically, but with default equipment, which is pretty bad if you get in the habit of taking casualties. The weapons available for upgrade, and the number you can add on, are more or less predetermined. Adding points to the main character's engineering raises the amount you can 'purchase,' but I've found this has little impact in general. Resource units don't carry on between missions, so there's really no management aspect to the game.

That said, the lack of resource focus means you'll be far more concerned with the mission objectives, which run the gamut of stealth to all-out war. The missions in general are well planned and remarkably challenging- on the hardest difficulty I actually got stuck about 1/3 of the way through the game. There are some issues in weapon configuration, which can cause you to scrub out on a mission the first time if you didn't know what you needed to equip, and oftentimes you're given few if any hints in this regard. Despite that, the missions are generally fun and fast-paced.

I have to say, though, that at times I wanted to pull my hair out when playing through some of them. You're often put up against massively superior enemy units, and one wrong move can mean your doom (or losing a ton of ships, which is pretty much the same thing). Some battles can drag on forever, with your fleet exchanging potshots with strong enemy warships until someone's shields finally go down. I actually left to eat lunch during some of the longer ones, and came back to find my fleet happily victorious. If you respec all your weapons for each mission you might be able to go faster, but only at the cost of expensive general-purpose upgrades like shields, power cells, and engines.

The game mechanics in general are well done and quite intuitive (despite what others here have said). There's advanced movement controls, but these are generally not needed. You issue basic orders to your ships, and they do their best to carry them out. Sometimes they may seem to take their time, but this is because even your fastest ships tend to be pretty slow and sluggish.

The graphics and sound are both very well done. This is pretty clear if you've seen any screenshots of the game. The campaign is interspersed with full motion video cutscenes, and all dialogue is spoken. Some of the alien dialogue is really irritating, but that just gives you more reason to kill them all. In general, the campaign is interesting and immersive, and the mission objectives go beyond the usual 'kill them all' scenario. As previously mentioned, the missions are challenging, and get more so as the campaign progresses. Perfectionists will be hard-pressed to finish without losing any ships even on easy difficulty.

I didn't have any serious technical issues with the game, though it doesn't seem to like multitasking. Load times were short, and Nexus ran very smoothly on my rather average PC.

If you're the type that appreciates real time combat, sci-fi, and/or 3-D strategy games, Nexus is certainly a good pick. I would say it's one of the only truly difficult real time strategy games out there now, so those just seeking a challenge of any sort might want to check it out.

Buggy Buggy Buggy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm going to temporarily hate this game. First of all, let me say it looks amazing. The graphics hold up to any other game out there right now, which is why I love just sitting back and watching the battles take place. If you're into thinking of a strategy, plotting it out, and then hitting "go" and watching it all unfold, you'll think this game is terrific. I happen to like these types of games-they're a nice psychological break from being constantly chased and shot at in Half Life 2, or crawling around on the jungle floor in fear of trigens in FarCry. HOWEVER.......
The North American release of this game is extremely buggy once you get about two thirds of the way through the game. The patch that came out for this game is only intended for the European release; the North American version is already the patched version. Which makes me wonder if the patch itself is screwed up.
When going into the forums of this game's website, it seems that many people are having the same problem starting in the Mechanoid Invasion mission. When you destroy a certain ship, which the mission REQUIRES you to destroy, the game crashes to the desktop. It seems that for the people who don't experience this particular crash, it crashes shortly after in another mission. There is no way around these crashes. Restarting the computer does not help and all of the tricks people have suggested in the forums are useless. If you can get to the end of this game in its current unpatched state, you are lucky.
I am not going to even load this game up again until there is a patch. I refuse to change my strategies as far as which ships to destory or what tactics I use to destroy them just to avoid a crash. That is not the way a $40.00 game is supposed to operate. Shame on Mithis for releasing a game that is so buggy and unfinished. This is a rip off. I'm so angry right now that I'm seeing spots.

No crashes here

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Being a space gamer since the early DOS days I can only say that this is the game I have been waiting for all this time.

HIGH POINTS: If you like B5 battle scenes, Galactica (new) battle scenes, or watching any kind of space combat, after participating in this, those other will seem amatuer imitations! The fleet battles in this take your breath away.

LOW POINTS: I have found at times that my ship is not appropriatly equipped for a certain mission, or that I need to do things in a specific order, though no hints are provided. For example, to go through the wormhole, I had to scan it first, but I was not told this on that first mission to Pluto....or the base with the leaky generator....you must destroy fighter tender first or the generator wont blow when you destroy it.

MULTIPLAYER: It is rare that I don't find a multiplayer game available, and everyone has been very friendly on games, even when I had no idea what I was doing!

NEEDED: An expansion with another campaign!

Good game that has a lot going for it, but it's not without its shortcomings

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First of all, let me say that I'm a big sci-fi and astronomy buff. Between the recent debate and decision about what formally constitutes a planet, and all the hype surrounding the impending arrival of Spore, I've been worked into a frenzy over the last few months. So, I've been looking for good space-themed sci-fi games to tide me over for the coming months. I recently purchased Nexus as a way to tide myself over. For the most part, I have not been disappointed.

The basic story of the game is that you play the role of Marcus Cromwell, a war hero that had gone missing for some ten years before being recovered from hibernation in orbit around Mars. Your family has a proud history of space exploration and combat, and your father disappeared trying to pass through a wormhole with a colonization fleet. You start the game working for one of the handful of megacorporations that basically run space travel in the solar system.

Things progress fairly quickly, and that is one of the strengths of the game. You start out with an unimpressive cruiser, but soon discover alien technology and a much cooler ship with lots of neat abilities, which you control most of the game. You also pick up more support ships as the game progresses, and more and greater powers with your primary vessel.

The gameplay is pretty good, but not great. Often, it feels like you're just along for the ride while things just happen. If you don't have the best assortment of weaponry (and trust me, there are a lot of options), battles can take forever to complete. Of course, you can always restart missions, but this entails reconfiguring your weapon and device load-outs. Luckily, this is a mostly smooth process, although I did find one thing that bothered me. Most ships come with somewhere between a dozen and perhaps thirty hardpoints where all manner of weapons, engines, shields, and miscellaneous devices can be attached. However, each hardpoint slot can only be used for certain types of devices or weapons. The problem stems from the fact that some slots can be used for more than one type of item.

So, let's say you're going on a recon mission. You'll want to take that multi-use light weapon/scanner slot and put a data scanner into it. But if you've already got a light weapon in that slot, you can't move it to another dedicated light weapon slot. You have to get rid of it completely, and you get no credit for having it. It just disappears. This is mildly frustrating, but you generally have enough resource points that you can pretty much get what you'll want or need to complete a mission.

The battles themselves are pretty fun, but like I said, it doesn't always feel like you have that many options. It's pretty much attack an enemy's shields, knock them out, attack their hull, rinse, repeat. There are a variety of situations you'll encounter, however, such that you're not always in a straight-up combat situation. This keeps things from getting too repetitive or dull.

Of course, one of the great things about this game is the fact that even when you're just watching battles unfold, you'll be pleased, because the game looks pretty great. The weapons all have distinctive looks and effects, and when lots of stuff is happening simultaneously, things can get exciting. Also, the sound effects are top notch, with a number of really odd sound effects for the weapons, and also for the other bizarre occurrences you'll encounter while travelling the galaxy.

Speaking of sound, the voice acting is surprisingly good. There is a lot of spoken dialogue between and during missions, and thankfully, the actors are almost universally perfectly cast. I never found myself wishing they would shut up. The variety of characters and their interactions create a pretty good dramatic backdrop for the action. The only voices that seemed a little excessive and over the top were one of the more violent alien races, but only just barely. Otherwise, the sound was generally awesome.

The game probably has limited replay value, since it's primarily one large campaign, and half the fun is watching the plot unfold, although skirmishes could be entertaining, in theory. The only issue is that, without a storyline to carry you along, battles might be a lot less compelling.

Overall, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is a really cool game. I particularly enjoy the fact that it's set just a century in the future, and begins by showing how mankind has make progress with space exploration, but maintains realism, evinced by the fact that you initial journey from Mars to Jupiter takes approximately eight months. As new technologies and more advanced alien races are encountered, however, the technology level jumps significantly. It all feels like a natural progression, of course allowing for the sci-fi elements and the fact that you must suspend disbelief.

Despite its minor flaws, I would recommend this game to anyone who's everenjoyed any of the Wing Commander games, or Freelancer, or even space RTS games like Homeworld or Star Wars: Empire at War. It's somewhere in the middle, with a little for everyone.

The new king of Space RTS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I had the chance to play with the American version of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and the truth is, that this game redefines almost every aspect of the space RTS/simulation genre.

Mind blowing, foretimed graphics and stunning weapon effects. Voluptous adrenaline rush fills your body every time a plasma battery or a tacnuke rocket crashes into enemy starships, ripping the hull apart.

Stunning story with lots of twists, great presentation, perfect roundoff and acme.

As you become more and more experienced you can outfit all your ships with bigger, meaner and better battery, missile, torpedo, laser, etc. emplacements.

Absolutely awesome general effect!

You will love this game.

OUTER SPACE IS WAITING FOR ORDERS

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Space strategy games are a very special category of games with a very long history starting in early 80's with the big hit title "ELITE". Since then many things have changed of course but the main concept remains the same. You start the game with few missions more let's say instructional just to get more familiar with the interface. Right after this you will be able to command about 2 or 3 capital ships and about the same amount of squadrons. Things are easy for the moment but as you go on and on with your game you will be in the very interesting situation to manage more than 15 different ships with different specifications something that will challenge your strategic abilities. During the historical space battles you will able to take in real time decisions. For succefull results you got to know all the string and weak points of your and your enemy's fleet. Space bar is pausing the time to give you time to think and decide.
Nexus has amazing graphics and sound that will enjoy even the most difficult gamer. Personally I would expect a more easy game play. I think it will entertain you for many hours.

Great space battles with gorgeous graphics? I'm there!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love giant space battles! Babylon 5, the last four seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the new Battlestar Galactica series, and all the Star Wars movies were chock full of giant space cruisers and destroyers blowing the hell out of each other. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed playing the Homeworld series, and why I also had a blast playing Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.

The story itself plays out like an epic space opera which builds itself up with many twists and turns in its plot. You play as Marcus Cromwell, whose father disappeared after traveling through a wormhole found in our solar system. Without spoiling too much of the story, eventually you too will have to travel through that same wormhole and survive what lies beyond.

Graphically, the game looks phenomenal. You can tell the developers spent a lot of time in deciding on the look and feel of Nexus. Each race in the game has intricately designed ships with their own distinctive appearances and attributes. The background graphics are not just a simple "stars on black space" motif, but instead use vibrant colours, high-resolution textures and excellent lighting effects to ensure the game in no way looks "boring."

Nexus' gameplay centres around space battles between opposing ship fleets, and it is one that can be both very simple and incredibly hard at the same time. Some missions can be very easy to complete, while other missions (especially the later ones) can be excruciatingly hard. The control scheme takes a little time to get used to, but it will become second nature once you get used to it. Ship-to-ship combat is easily initiated by right-clicking on an enemy ship. Moreover, you can also target specific components onboard enemy vessels such as their engines, shields, or weapon generators, which allow you to plan your attacks strategically rather than just throwing everything you've got at the enemy.

In between missions you are also able to outfit your ships with new weapons, armor, and engines, and with this option you can outfit specific ships under your command to perform different roles. For example, one of your ships can be designed solely to take down an enemy vessel's shields, while another can be used to obliterate their hull. My main complaint with the gameplay of Nexus is that, unlike the Homeworld series, you cannot travel to any point on the map you wish, but only to the various "nav-points" on the map. Also, this game is not for anybody who is impatient. It can take some time for your ships to get to their destinations even with engine power maxed out, so prepare to sink a fair bit of time into this game. However, these are only minor complaints which detract little from the game itself.

Sound wise Nexus does a decent job as well. The game employs some subtle yet very moody music in the background. The sound effects of engines firing, torpedo impacts, and laser blasts are done well also. As for the voice acting, while many people thought the voice acting was bad, personally I thought it was pretty good. Now obviously the actors are not going to win any Oscars, but what they say and how they act is done well enough to convey how the characters feel and to advance the plot.

In the end, Nexus may not be as high profile as some of the games released this year, but do not let that fool you. Nexus is a highly enjoyable, rewarding experience and a great game particularly if you like strategy games. I would even go as far as to say it is one of the first sleeper hits of the year, so go out and give it a try.

My ratings are:
Graphics = 9/10
Sound = 8/10
Gameplay = 9/10
Overall = 8.5/10

The best Space RTS game out there!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've played a lot of space RTS's in my time. HomeWorld 1 & 2, Orb, Heg. Legions of Iron etc. but this game is far superior and here's why.

1. Graphics are like everyone else says below, down right amazing! You'll feel your really there! Space that is.

2. Gameplay, can any one say there is no resource gathering here yah!

3. Interface is simple and for the most part user-friendly. I like.

4. Story is great even better than that of Star Wars!

5. Lastly, this is a great game. I know it is not perfect as some say but what game is except HL 2? This game is better than any other Space RTS on the market in the past or now.

I have not finnished the game but I am about half way through. I love it.

If you buy this game try downloading the Skrimisher Mod! You can choose your fleet and all of the weapons/equipment and even your starting location anywhere in the game's universe. Wheither near a green looking planet or blazing comet, it will take you there. You can download it from any major gaming site on the web. It's called "Nexus Skrimisher." In fact I like creating my own missions more than playing the actual game! It more fun that way!

Anyway, this is one great game! Try it and you'll see what I mean if your into this sort of genre. Trust an old Space RTS player.

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