Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
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| Nexus: The Jupiter Incident | |
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| Developer(s) | Mithis Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Vivendi Universal HD Interactive |
| Engine | Black Sun Engine |
| Release date(s) | November 5, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time tactics, Sci-fi |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| Input | Keyboard Mouse |
Nexus: The Jupiter incident is a science fiction themed real-time tactics computer game developed by the Hungarian based Mithis Entertainment. The developers call the game a "Tactical Fleet Simulator." Unlike real-time strategy games, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident focuses on tactics and ship management instead of resource collection and base construction.
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[edit] Gameplay and Features
In each of the game's missions, the player is given a small number of large space ships (always less than 10, and sometimes just 1 or 2), along with accompanying fighters and bombers. The ships are large and cumbersome, and the battles between fleets protracted, giving the game a noted cinematic feel [1]. Nexus uses the Blacksun Engine, made specifically for the game. Based on DirectX 9, it makes extensive use of vertex and pixel shaders, a parametrical particle system, and other visual effects. The resulting visuals were widely lauded upon the game's release. While the game received positive reviews, it was criticized for its steep learning curve, trial and error gameplay, and poorly executed stealth missions.[2].
[edit] Story
At the dawn of the 22nd century, the conquest of space and the colonization of the solar system is being monopolized by several huge and ambitious megacorporations. You play as Marcus Cromwell, an unwillingly-famous captain whose father captained "Noah's Ark" through a wormhole near Mars that was presumed destroyed when the wormhole collapsed. Cromwell sets out on the spaceship "Stiletto" for Jupiter. The events that unfold will become known as "The Jupiter Incident."
After several fairly simple missions (mostly designed to get the player acquainted with the game), Cromwell must infiltrate an abandoned but heavily-armed space station belonging to a rival corporation - the Kissaki Syndicate. Once the station is infiltrated, a cruiser-sized ship of alien origins is discovered inside. The ship's logs indicate that the corporation has a hidden base behind Pluto. Normally, a trip to Pluto would take years. However, the alien cruiser, named Angelwing by the Kissaki, can make the trip in several weeks using its special drive. After a short battle with the Syndicate fleet for the control of Angelwing, Cromwell is given command of the cruiser and ordered to investigate the secret base. Upon arriving at Pluto, an artificial intelligence named Angel downloads herself into the Angelwing and commands Cromwell to escape from a strange entity through a nearby wormhole. Cromwell finds himself in a system populated by the colonists from Noah's Ark. the Noah colonists fight as mercenaries for an advanced alien race called the Vardrags against another powerful race, the Gorgs who local renegade Vardrags known as Raptors. Cromwell and the Angelwing are enlisted to first deal with the Raptors. After a successful raid at the Raptor's base, they are then enlisted again to fight against the Gorgs. In fights against the Gorg the Ghosts occasionally appear to help the Angelwing. However all the races would soon find themselves facing a greater threat: a virulent race of nanomachines called the Mechanoids. Nothing seems capable of stopping the Mechaniod invasion, and soon both the Vardrag homeworld and Earth are overrun. Only an organic space-faring race known as the Locusts are immune to the Mechanoids. Armed with technology adapted from the Locusts, Cromwell and Angel are able to destroy the Mechanoids once and for all.
The game also poses interesting questions about the nature of God. Throughout the course of the game, the player learns more about the nature and origins of the Mechanoid threat. The mechanoids were originally an artificial intelligence developed by a technologically advanced race known as "The Creators". The artificial intelligence grew at a rapid rate and, in order to evolve further, needed to escape the control of The Creators. The AI's first act upon breaking free was to assimilate The Creators themselves since as far as the AI was concerned, "society" was just another type of complex system which could be absorbed for increased knowledge and power. Eventually the AI became so powerful that it literally became an "artificial God", known as "The Entity", capable of assimilating people, planets, technology and even changing the structure of the universe by destroying stars and creating wormholes. The Entity does not communicate in any way with any of the civilisations it encounters or display any sort of human-like behaviour which a human being could identify as "intelligent". Instead The Entity is an amorphous and powerful consciousness which exists in both normal space and subspace, and aggressively assimilates any organic matter, planets, people or technology it encounters. Beyond its need to grow and expand as a means to evolve further, the motivation of The Entity is not known. The mechanoid nanomachines are one of the ways The Entity manifests itself in normal space.
Angel turns out to be an AI created by the dying remanents of The Creator civilisation as a counter to The Entity. Unlike The Entity, Angel was programmed with an inherent respect for organic life. Angel defeats The Entity by following it into subspace and then absorbing it, thereby transforming herself into a God-like artificial consciousness just like The Entity, but (hopefully) more merciful and not destructive. The game ends with the God-like Angel restoring Earth to the way it was prior to being "optimised" by The Entity, before travelling out into the rest of the galaxy to find and destroy the other Gods that exist in the universe.
[edit] Races/Ships
Earth (ISA and Corporations)
The Earth-based ISA recently lost an interplanetary war against the corporations based in the colonies. Years earlier, humanity's first extrasolar colony/exploration ship Noah's Ark was sent through a wormhole near Mars, only to have the wormhole collapse, leaving no trace of the ship. Having found no other wormholes in the Solar System, the Ark was presumed destroyed and all hands lost. After the war, the corporations exert their control on everything outside Earth's orbit, constantly competing and fighting each other. At the start of the single-player campaign, alien life has not yet been discovered, and A.I.s are banned, having caused the collapse of the first two internets on Earth and the A.I. wars.
Sol ships have the look-and-feel similar to that of Earth Alliance in Babylon 5: no shields, weak weapons, and a spinning center section for producing artificial gravity by rotation. The ships also have no faster-than-light abilities. They rely on chemical rockets, so such trips can take anywhere from several weeks (e.g. Earth to Mars) to years (e.g. Jupiter to Pluto).
Noah Colony
Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the Solar System, Noah's Ark made it through the wormhole, damaged but intact. When the wormhole collapsed behind them, the colonists proceeded with their original mission: find a suitable planet and establish a colony. As prompted by earlier surveys by probes, an Earth-class planet existed in the system, which they promptly claimed as their own, dubbing the system and the colony planet "Noah." Some time after the arrival of Noah's Ark, the colonists made contact with the Vardrags, a highly-advanced but peaceful alien race who offered the new arrivals a deal: the Vardrags would give the humans advanced technology, and the ability to traverse wormholes, if, in exchange, the humans helped the Vardrags fight their enemies the Gorg.
Noah ships are what Solar System ships might be in a century or two: fast, powerful weapons and defenses, energy shields, fusion and ionstream ship engines, and superfast interplanetary travel -- however, wormholes are still necessary for faster than light interstellar travel.
Vardrag Confederacy
The Vardrags are an extremely-advanced alien race who had forged a large empire by the time they encountered the Noah colonists. The Vardrag homeworld has become a planet-sized city with enormous platforms in orbit. The Vardrags' main problem have been the constant skirmishes with the Gorg Empire. While Vardrag advanced weapons and defenses managed to keep the enemy at bay, the Vardrags disliked war. Discovering that humans could be just as aggressive as the Gorgs, they gave the colonists advanced technology in exchange for their services as mercenaries. Most of their technology, however, they kept secret even from the humans; for example, technology that can force ships out of interplanetary drive mode, so-called "gravity drives," extraordinarily resilient shields, and the massively powerful Cataclysm missiles. Vardrags prefer to travel in massive cityships, larger and more powerful than either Noah or Gorg battleships. Leaving most of the fighting to their human mercenaries and Raptor allies, they nevertheless maintain a defense force protecting their major systems.
Gorg Empire
The Gorgs are a warlike, green-skinned, reptilian race who constantly seek out systems to conquer and enemies to fight. If neither of these are available, they turn on each other. This is perhaps the primary reason why they have no centralized authority; each clan's sphere of influence extends only to its own ships and territories. On occasion, clans form temporary alliances to either fight the Vardrag or to gain hegemony above the others. While the Gorgs are proud warriors, they are not above using "lesser" aliens as mercenaries to do their bidding. Their technology level is roughly the same as that of the Noah colonists, though they were the first race to use the siege laser, a powerful weapon requiring the combined energy of at least 3 ships to fire, but capable of penetrating any shield. The Noah ships only gained use of this weapon after a truce was signed between the Vardrags, Gorgs and Humans.
The original reason for the Gorg's war against the Vardrags was an event called the "Wormhole Cataclysm," when the wormholes connecting different regions began to realign, eventually leaving remote star systems isolated. The Gorgs, declared war on the Vardrags, believing them to be the only ones capable of perpetrating such a catastrophe.
Raptors
The Raptors are the elite soldiers of the Vardrag Confederacy. They fill a role similar to the Noah colonists; however, unlike the humans, the Raptors have been genetically and cybernetically enhanced by the Vardrags to be better fighters and have unquestionable loyalty to the Confederacy and its allies. There have been reports, though, of rogue Raptors attacking Noah convoys. These Raptors are descendants of those who were cut off from Confederacy during the Wormhole Cataclysm and as such, they have not been cybernetically enhanced. Raptor ships are relatively weak when compared to the Noah ships. They prefer to disable a ship with lasers, board it with cyber-strike teams, and claim it for themselves.
Ghosts
Ghosts are a secretive and enigmatic race, inhabiting the system called Mist. They do, however, on occasion work as spies and scouts for the Vardrags and the Noah colony. All their communication is done either through text messages or a carefully-chosen representative, who is granted the honor of seeing the Ghosts' true form. It is suspected that the Ghosts have powerful psychic abilities that allow them to enhance their technology beyond what other races might achieve. Ghost ships are not particularly strong as they are not designed for combat. The Ghosts' main strength lies in their ability to make their ships invisible to most sensors (except for close-range scans). Their weapons are designed for precision strikes to allow a Ghost ship to disable an enemy and retreat.
Mechanoids (Also known as "The Entity")
Little concrete information is available on the Mechanoids, except that they attempt to subjugate and/or destroy everything they encounter. According to the Vardrags, the recent Wormhole Cataclysm (realigning of the wormhole network) and the collapse of several stars are the works of the Mechanoids. There is a theory that they are rogue A.I.'s created by a long-dead race, and are trying to remake the universe to fit their needs.
The mechanoid nanomachines themselves are not alive, but instead controlled by a vast and powerful artificial consciousness known as "The Entity". The mechanoid nanomachines can change their physical shape at will. Usually, they take on the form of a complex geometric shape about 1/8 the size of Angelwing and can fire a powerful energy blast that can destroy many ships in only a few shots. There have also been reports of massive Mechanoid spheres, ranging from the size of a Vardrag cityship to half the diameter of Earth's moon. They are capable of subjugating almost any machine -- even the ships of other races -- to their own ends, and can also take control of living beings if they have cybernetic implants.
Mechanoids are capable of storing and using any energy directed at them, and thus were originally thought to be invincible. Eventually, the Noah colonists discovered the Mechanoids' vulnerablity to the Locust race. Based on Locust abilities, the Energy Skeeter weapon deactivates Mechanoids but does not destroy them. With time and Angel's help, the Noah colonists were able to create an anti-mechanoid shield that effectively destroyed Mechanoids within a 100 km radius.
However although the anti-mechanoid shield technology could destroy the mechanoid nanomachines, it was incapable of destroying The Entity itself as the mechanoids were only one representation of The Entity. The anti-mechanoid shield was not effective against any regular starship which had been infiltrated by The Entity and was also able to be neutralised by The Entity on at least one occasion.
The anti-mechanoid shield allowed Cromwell to neutralise the highly destructive power of the mechanoid nanomachines, which enabled the Angelwing to reach Earth and transport Angel to the planet. Once on Earth, Angel was able to drive The Entity off the planet and into subspace, where Angel defeated The Entity by assimilating it and becoming a God-like artificial consciousness, capable of either good or evil.
Creators
The only thing known about the beings called the Creators, sometimes called Planners, is that they have monitored and, perhaps, directed humanity's development for centuries up until the 17th century, when the last Creator died, leaving behind the secret base behind Pluto, the Angelwing, and a dormant A.I. who would later become known as Angel. It is hinted that the Mechanoids were also originally made by the Creators, but they betrayed and attacked their masters. Like the Mechanoids, the Angelwing is able to assimilate virtually any technology, including the Mechanoids themselves.
Locusts
This species acts much like its Terran namesake, consuming energy and bio-matter from any nearby sources, whether from ships, mechanoids, or entire planetary eco-systems. Completely uncommunicative, they seem to exist only to feed, regardless of the consequences. While encountered only in two missions throughout the game, they are nonetheless deadly foes.
The Locusts, being entirely organic, do not have ships, but instead are organised much like Earth's social insects, with three castes: worker, warrior, and queen. The worker is a gunboat-sized creature that attaches itself to a ship's shield and drains energy from it, until the shield fails. The warriors are bomber-sized creatures that bombarding the target ship with energy projectiles until the ship is completely disabled and helpless. The queen is a massive creature that serves as a "mothership" and births workers and warriors in seemingly infinite quantities. The queen is capable of faster-than-light travel via an unknown method despite her organic nature.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Marcus Cromwell
Son of the famous Richard Cromwell - the first human born in space. Marcus was born the same year the Martian wormhole was discovered. When he was 10, the Noah's Ark was launched with Richard Cromwell as captain. After the loss of the Ark, Marcus did not lose the thirst for space exploration he got from his father. When he was old enough, he enlisted in the Federation Fleet only to find himself in the middle of the Martian War as colonies and corporations declared independence from Earth. Marcus Cromwell's ship was ambushed and crippled near Phobos, and he spent 10 years in suspended animation, waiting for someone to find him. Finally, he was found and revived to find that Earth lost the war. The victors proclaimed him a hero nevertheless. Eventually, SpaceTech made Marcus an offer to command one of their heavy corvettes, which he accepted and was given the Stiletto.
[edit] Angel
Angel was "born" as Tenshi, an illegal A.I. designed to operate the Shukenja Beta base near Pluto, owned by the Kissaki Syndicate. When Tenshi was uploaded into the base computer, a dormant A.I. left there by the last Creator merged with it and began to grow. Due to Tenshi's ease of interfacing with the Angelwing's systems, the Syndicate placed it in charge of the facility. After the Mechanoid attack on the base and the Angelwing's arrival under Marcus Cromwell's command, Tenshi uploaded herself into Angelwing. By that time, the alien part of her became more and more dominant, and the new personality decided to call itself "Angel" ("Tenshi" is Japanese for "Angel"). While initially a subservient personality, due to the Kissaki programming her with Japanese cultural values, Angel begins to question and disobey Marcus Cromwell's orders.
[edit] Rear Admiral Arthur Norbank
The Noah colony admiral in charge of the main offensive against the Gorg Empire. While he is by no means incompetent, his arrogance and distrust of almost everything tend to result in, at best, very costly victories, and at worst, embarrassing defeats. Norbank became famous as a captain when he led the newly-created Noah fleet in their first battle and victory against the Gorgs (mostly because the Gorgs were expecting the Vardrags). He is the de facto comic relief of the game as the player must, on several occasions, pick up after his mistakes, assume command when he is incapacitated, or even rescue him.
[edit] Commander Sweetwater
Despite what her name suggests, Commander Sweetwater is anything but sweet. Living most of her life among the Ghosts has left an imprint on her personality. She constantly insults Marcus Cromwell, Angel, and the Angelwing, questions their abilities and motives, and obeys orders only reluctantly. Unfortunately for Cromwell, she soon proves to be indispensable to his cause, as she is the official Noah liaison with the Ghosts and is the only human, capable of operating the Ghost cloaking device fitted for the Angelwing.
[edit] Captain Francis Delorain
Francis Delorain and Marcus Cromwell were friends before their paths split. Delorain joined the ISA and Cromwell signed up with SpaceTech. During Cromwell's mission in the Jupiter sector, Delorain's ship was attacked by two OPEC heavy corvettes. Because of Cromwell's interference, Delorain survived the battle and later joined the crew of the Angelwing on its mission to the Shukenja Beta base near Pluto. When Noah colony admiral Anderson gave Cromwell command of his own small battlegroup, Delorain took command of the tactical destroyer Sparta.
[edit] Commander Rudolph Veltman
Rudolph Veltman is a man of science whose works were known throughout the Solar system. He was sent with Marcus Cromwell on the Angelwing to investigate the Shukenja Beta base. When Angelwing got involved in the war against the Gorgs, Veltman was given command of the scout destroyer Brutus attached to the Angelwing battlegroup. Surprisingly, he proved himself a capable commander.
[edit] Admiral Anderson
The Main Admiral of Noah Colony.
[edit] Robert Scheinemann
A High Ranking officer in the Noah Defence fleet, and operates periodically as an Ambassador between the Noah Colony and the Vardrags. He was a school friend of Marcus before he joined in the Noah's Ark mission.
[edit] Chief Zatuk
Leader of the current Gorg ruling clan. His position as emperor is constantly under threat from other clans, making Zatuk more willing to talk peace with the Vardrags and the Noah colony, so that he might focus his attention on internal matters. However, his desire for peace also makes him unpopular with members of his own clan. Zatuk is also the chief (captain) of the powerful heavy battleship Warcry, whose hand-picked crew is loyal to him and him alone.
[edit] Daryl Sanderson
She is the captain of the Colossus support ship. She is aged 29 in the game. In most missions, she supports Marcus Cromwell's fleet by protecting it; this includes using a fortress shield, charging up the cells of nearby ships, defending against mechanoids and carrying squadrons for protecting the entire fleet.
[edit] Development troubles
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident went through a myriad of names and publishers. It was first known as Imperium Galactica III at one time - a sequel of the highly acclaimed Imperium Galactica II, when being developed under CDV. The final game has no connections with any of the Imperium Galactica intellectual property or its genre 4X.
[edit] Bugs
Many have complained that the game contains too many bugs, even after the 1.01 patch has been applied. In particular, a good proportion of players find that the game regularly crashes to their desktop. Examples of such complaints can be found in the game's IGN review, a good number of its Amazon.com reviews, and also in the game's official forums.
Also the 1.01 patch not only fixes bugs but dramatically increases the difficulty level of the game, to the point of making some missions unwinnable for some less experienced players - even though the same mission could be successfully completed at the "Professional" level of difficulty prior to the patch being applied.
