Evochron Mercenary is a pleasant surprise, but it isn't without it's faults.
Essentially the game is an offline or friends-only (up to 32 players) version of Eve - but it's not. Your missions and the majority of other ships that you will interact with are handled by NPC's. Player vs Player combat is allowed and you can even group up into "clans" and battle it out at will.
Space is endless. No "jump gates" required to get from one "room" to the next, you can simply fly there if so inclined. I've not ventured out beyond the starting system yet, but that's what others have stated.
The first thing you'll notice is the 15 minutes of tutorial audio "missions" you can optionally do before jumping into the game. I recommend them. Since both average piloting and combat is handled from a first-person cockpit view it's much more difficult to play than simply point and click Eve. There's almost as many controls to bind as there are keys and I find myself wanting to write a cheat sheet or program multiple sets of buttons on my gaming keyboard.
I say it's first-person and it really is best played that way but it does offer a third person view as well so you can see your own ship.
Ship customizing goes above and beyond anything seen in similar games. Not only can you pick the superframe, but you pick your wings, engines, cargo hold, etc. within the limits of what the superframe can hold. You can even go a step further and configure not only the position but the XYZ size of each of those components. Don't want engines in the traditional rear of your ship? Stick them out on one of the wingtips and stretch them out long for a sleek racing look. Want a fat belly on your ship? Expand the cargo hold diameter.
I chose a mining / cargo track for starters to get familiar with flying so my missions have been pretty minor. So far I've mined diamonds from asteroids, oxygen from a planet's atmosphere and water from lakes. In addition to spaceports you can also land on planetary bases or even just do flyby's and use your tractor beam to suck water off the planet's surface to transport and sell elsewhere. There's a complete commerce and merchant system similar to an MMO.
There's a free server to download (Winblows only, but I'm going to see if it will run in Wine) and they say with a higher end server and a good Internet connection you can have up to 32 players connected to the same server. There's also a resource editor tool if you want to replace textures or audio files with your own.
Things you do in single player carry over into multi-player and vice-versa, so developing your character and building an awesome ship in single player is useful for group combat as well. Got a mission that's too tough to do alone? You can join a server and ask for help!
On the down side, the learning curve is pretty darn steep. I ended up Googling a few things like how to find a waypoint on your map for a mission. Turns out your auto pilot automatically locks onto them, just activate it. The tutorial helps but is long and rather dry. I lost interest in it quickly. I also found it much too easy to die due to silly things. For instance, F1 opens the map. F3 opens your cargo hold inventory screen. F2 initiates jump drive. Don't hit F2 when mining an asteroid and trying to open your cargo hold - jumping through an asteroid really doesn't do well for the complexion, unless you like explosive orange. F6 sets your weapon fire mode, but F7 self destructs. I unbound self-destruct and bound jump to F7 after the third time I jumped headfirst into something accidentally.
The autopilot also doesn't seem to mind if there's something between you and the destination. Like a planet. You have to make sure you're clear of nearby obstacles before initiating autopilot. Tick off 2 more deaths due to that. Entering the atmosphere at more than 1000 meters per second is also a bad idea as you tend to pop like a fire cracker. Check off 2 more deaths.
The graphics are not bad, especially considering the game is about 300 MB. The nebula backdrops are gorgeous, but the cockpit framing aliases a bit for me.
All in all I found it well worth the money, even if I just play it single player mode. It scratches the "Eve Online" itch without all the crap that goes along with Eve. I still haven't connected to any servers, but I only played for a couple of hours.
