The best game I’ve ever played, period. Words are difficult to describe my experience leading up to and discovering this game, suffice to say I had grown up on Macintosh computer games from the black and white early days of Crystal Quest and Broderbund, to shareware games like Ambrosia’s Escape Velocity and primitive 3D space sims like Lucasart’s X-wing. Escape Velocity held the most interest for me, particularly the space trade as well as the variety of locations available to visit and the feel of galactic conquest. I had the idea in the back of my mind that it would be just so great if someone would come up with a multiplayer version of Escape Velocity, and combine it with the 3D action of a game like X-wing.

Enter junior year at the University of Chicago, I stumble upon an obscure website maintained by one “roguelazer” urging players to join the “blue” nation. Shortly after, I am signing up for a “Vendetta Test” which offers a free game client download. Then in its alpha stages, VO shocked me with its depth in terms of graphics as well as physics. Planets rotated, space stations hummed, blinked, and were full of activity offering a variety of trade items. The space ships moved like fish, yet were able to turn in any direction obeying at least some of the laws of Newtonian Mechanics. The experience was amazing.

Since then I’ve watched Vendetta Online grow from a free engine test to a subscription based fully fledged MMORPG. It has been consistently maintained and developed by a small team of 4 (compared to other games such as Eve with over 600 on the development team) and gets more things Right than games that are far larger and mainstream. The only downside to the game is, not enough people play it! The universe never really feels “empty”, nonetheless I can’t help but wonder if it’s a trick of the market or lack of advertising that makes what I consider The Best Game Of All Time not to be more widely played. I say that having grown up on famicom (the Japanese version, circa 1985 Tokyo) and blockbuster games such as Fallout, Myst, Marathon, etc. etc.

At any rate, in this day and age where MMORPGs are a dime a dozen this one goes too easily unnoticed. But try it for yourself and formulate your own opinion. It’s free to download, you automatically get 8 hours of logged game time to try it, and subscriptions run as little as $6.67 per month ($9.99 standard). Speaking of which, the business model VO runs on is admirable as well; none of that item shop or “free area” nonsense. It’s the same world for everyone.

But that’s enough out of this dedicated player.