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Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

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8.8 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 24 critic reviews
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Based on 34 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: HD Interactive / Vivendi Universal

Developer: Mithis Games

Genre(s): Real-Time Strategy

Players: 32

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: November 5, 2004

Summary

Immerse yourself in Nexus - The Jupiter Incident, a real-time mission-based tactical space game ("what we call a TFS: a Tactical Fleet Simulator") featuring spectacular real time battles and breathtaking motion picture quality. Focus on tactics and action as you control up to a dozen battleships encountering aliens, unknown solar systems and astrophysical phenomena in your struggle to save Earth.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. Although extremely delicate and vulnerable, a balance is maintained by these companies. It has now been 60 years since the terrible catastrophe that befell Noah's Ark, the first colony ship of mankind. At the very edge of the solar system the companies make a discovery which will shift the technological advantage and upset the balance. And so a new conflict is born: "The Jupiter Incident". You are Marcus Cromwell, a young but already famous captain. With your legendary spaceship Stiletto you find yourself in the middle of the conflict. [HD Interactive]

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What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

3DAvenue

The storyline alone won't keep everyone going, and since it is unlikely the gameplay will either, the end result is probably going to be a lot of gamers losing interest pretty quickly into the game.

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Game Chronicles

You’ll need to invest yourself and a great deal of time just to learn the nuances of the gameplay and the interface, and making smart intuitive decisions before the missions can save you a lot of trial and error.

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Computer Games Online RO

Although the road to store shelves was long and painstaking, Nexus came out as a high-quality space strategy game (personally I would call it a Fleet Simulator, but that’s just me), which has no reason to hide in shame when confronted with the Homeworld games.

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PC Format

It's delicious to watch. Nexus' whirling space charts and system-spanning ships slip past spiraling asteroids, fend of the shadows of "Homeworld" and make your head spin. [Christmas 2004, p.114]

Game Informer

The story is intriguing in that sweeping fate-of-the-galaxy sci-fi kind of way, without being completely overblown and melodramatic. [March 2005, p.138]

PC Gamer

If you can forgive some small gameplay faults, Nexus pleases like a deep space production on the scale of a Roddenberry saga. [Apr 2005, p.74]

GameSpot

This gem of a space tactics offering is everything that fans of the genre have been waiting for, as it takes gorgeous, next-generation graphical technology and applies it to an exciting game about starship combat, rogue artificial intelligences, galaxy-spanning wormholes, and more.

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IGN

A good game. I certainly didn't think so when I began playing it however. There's a frustratingly high learning curve here and the game design doesn't exactly help that at all.

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Jolt Online Gaming UK

It may be slow, but its atmosphere is convincing enough to immerse you fully into its world.

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Computer and Video Games

Overall however, we're rather taken with Nexus. Its mixture of tactics, mouse-control and combat-orientated gameplay is suitably different from both "Homeworld" and traditional space-combat games like Freespace, delivering something unique and yet familiar enough to appeal to fans of either game. [PC Zone]

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GamePro

This game require real patience. There's no way to speed through long-distance trips, so it pays to keep a magazine handy (psst, you're holding one).

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GameShark

To all gamers who became dangerously aroused every time a capital ship beam cannon fired in "Freespace 2": this game is meant for you. I really hope the developers plan to add content and expand on the game universe in the future, because this franchise definitely has potential.

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Games Radar UK (Pre-2006)

Big, beautiful and compelling, Nexus is an epic game. However, its extremely slow pace may not be for everyone. [PC Gamer UK]

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IC-Games

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident isn't for everybody, since there is just that "little something' missing that would have made this a GREAT game, but so long as you have the system specs to do the game justice it's certainly one for the Space-Based Strategy fan.

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GameZone

The rough learning curve makes Nexus a game I don’t recommend to anyone new to the real-time space-strategy genre. If you’re a fan, though, Nexus will be right up your alley.

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Gamers' Temple

It looks fantastic, but strategy aficionados may find that there's too much of a puzzle-like aspect to the game's missions.

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Worth Playing

If commanding a highly configurable fleet of ships through scripted missions, micromanaging your efforts both in the pre-mission ship design stage and during every step of combat, appeals to you, then this game is what you want.

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Sydney Morning Herald

A very deep and realistic space simulation, but one that is too slow for most gamers to appreciate.

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Boomtown

At its worst, Nexus is painfully ponderous and distantly detached. At its best it's visually stupendous sci-fi spectacular with depth as well as style. The 2001 of Real Time Strategy if you will.

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Gamers Europe

The good is the über detailed physics accurate star systems, the bad is the interface and the ugly isn't visible because this is a good-looking game hampered by really small text.

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Eurogamer

The first couple of hours of the game are fantastic, as you're introduced to the universe, the ships, the stunning battles and the interesting gameplay, but for the average strategy fan, the realisation that the game is all about increasingly complex micro-management of your ships and crew is something of a let-down.

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Loaded Inc

The story is good, certainly, but if I wanted to watch a sci-fi tale I'd flick on Star Trek. Nexus is purely for the lover of slow paced space adventuring and combat, and those caught up in the Imperium Galactica series.

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GameSpy

Veterans of "Starfleet Command" or "Homeworld" multiplayer champs should get excited, because as tactical space combat simulators go, this is a pretty good one. The rest of us who would rather keep our micromanagement confined to the realm of Excel, on the other hand, will probably go back to our "simpler" RTS games.

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G4 TV

Nexus plays like a great game that misses the mark almost every step of the way. It’s slick, complex, and ambitious. But the potential here is never realized.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 34 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Caleb S gave it a10:
minus a few crash bugs that you can easily recover from with saving the game is great. Unless, I guess, your one of the few who aren't literate enough to learn how to take down shields. Anyone who likes space combat games should drop the $10 for this. I'm not sure how to even take the "critic" scores, they give this game a 77 and players give it 8.7. Empires TW just came out and got a 91 from critics and a 7.4 from real players and I see why mine crashes after every engagement. I'm just not sure what critics are good for, they just give all new games high marks if they come from big name companies and assume they suck from smaller ones without even trying the games it seems then I'm just left disappointed with games that i wish we're as good as this one.

Pedro D. gave it a9:
It's 2007 and i picked this up for $10, it's been one of the best games i've played for a while. To say it's real time strategy is a bit misleading, this flows a locked story line where each mission is a progressive battle, test or puzzle. The gameplay is awesome and looks amazing still ! The storyline is very sci-fi and keeps you in suspense, really liked the characters and they tend to grow on you over the course of the game, but the best is the huge battles with very customiseable ships. Awesome.

Psymon gave it a9:
An absolutely stunning game marred only by a few bugs. The graphics are beautiful and the ships all look suitably unique. The explosions look utterly incredible. The gameplay is very good, when you control more than a couple of ships it can flick from slow and methodical to frantically micromanaging to keep your ships alive (especially the ones that carry over between missions) while striking back at the enemy. Do you concentrate on maintaining your shields or strike back at your enemies? Should you launch fighters into the melee or should you try to take out the flak guns first? Do you close to range and pummel the shields with energy weapons or stand off and use some of your precious, limited missiles? Do you charge your shields now and go in all guns blazing, or cloak your ship and sneak up alongside before opening up, leaving yourself similarly exposed? Making choices like this can make or break a battle, but there's no single way to do it. The story is absorbing and the characters and voice acting top notch. Your character, Marcus Cromwell's, diary makes for interesting reading, giving you greater insight into the background of the game and frequently making me laugh. Now onto the bad, even with the 1.1 patch, the game is a little buggy. It appears to vary between people, but on mine it manifested as blue screening and restarting my PC on certain opening cutscenes. This is, to say the least, rather annoying and made it necessary to save the game before starting a mission in case it crashed and lost all the modifications I'd made to my ships. This is the main reason I gave it a 9 out of 10, but if you like the game, it's a very small fly in the ointment.

Meestyk gave it a10:
Should there be one last space adventure game, this title truly cut it. Even for a 2004 game, it should inspire you cravings for space battles meet Babylon 5 style. Truly spectacular epic cutscenes as well as the narration. Gorgeous graphics, tactical gameplay, friendly interface. You would do well to play this one, or face the gallows! Even some space games of 2007 are put to shame by this title. Well done, HD interactive.

Matthew T. gave it a10:
Holy Crap! Best overalll game that I've ever played. Played it one time through on easy for the story line and to see how it played, then immediatly played it through on hard and still found it interesting and picked up on new sublties in the storyline. Most definately worth the buy.

^Redbull Sen gave it a10:
This game isn't buggy if you add the patch to it. People who can't get this game didn't try very hard. I love this game. Can do the Fight for Earth nearly every time - hint: use Big Bang missiles!

Niding gave it a10:
Fantastic game. A user commented that ships never dies, something I thought too in the beginning. Once I figured out what modules/weapon works against this and that, the hostiles fell like flies (relativly). Brilliant game, only surpassed by Homeworld Series.

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Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

Game Info

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What The Critics Said

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