MMORPG's Sean "Pasanda" Cullinan has had a chance to play NetDevil's Jumpgate Evolution and today he shares his impressions of the upcoming space flight MMORPG:

Before I delve too deeply into this preview, I want to mention the following: a lot of folks will compare JGE to EVE Online (EVE); this is natural since they are both space flight Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs), and space flight remains a largely underexploited topic for contemporary MMOs. EVE is a very popular and polished game that I played for nearly a year.

Although it may annoy some folks, it is natural to draw comparisons when discussing subjective things. It helps one person relate to the opinions of another. After saying that, my first opinion is that it is very clear NetDevil did not build an EVE clone. I think it is also important to note that JGC existed a long time before Eve, and JGE is the natural progression of JGC. Eve is a space commerce simulator; JGE is a space combat game. From my experience, Eve was not about the flying; it was about commerce and industry, corporation building, and mining. Eve required a bit of flying to get around, most of which involved a great deal of clicking in space, and a bit of space combat which also had great dollops of clicking in space. In my opinion, Jumpgate Evolution is the exact opposite of Eve.
Jumpgate Evolution is a space flight combat game with elements of commerce, crafting, and mining. The primary focus of JGE is combat, and it is here where the game is slickest and really comes to life. The universe, as far as JGE is concerned, is made up of several Non-Player Controlled (NPC) enemy races and three playable Nations: Quantar, Solrain, and Octavian. I won't go into too much detail here, as most of this can be found on Wikipedia. Each of these three playable Nations has their own conflict and strife with one another, similar to the tripartite realm relationship found in Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC) by Mythic Entertainment. For me, this feature has the biggest potential to make this game a real winner; playing three sides off against one another, if balanced correctly, can lead to superb Player versus Player (PvP) and Realm versus Realm (RvR) or, in the case of Jumpgate Evolution, Nation versus Nation.

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Oohh.. Looks interesting. I never played JGC.. but this looks somewhat like the X universe, only online?