Escape Velocity - Sequel Badly Needed

Here on EISIR, I'm never afraid to tell it like it is. Often, a franchise needs to go off into the woods and die (that would be you, Halo). Occasionally though, a good game never gets the proper treatment it deserves. Maybe it's because it was too innovative, came out on the wrong (or dying) console, or just for some reason never caught the fancy of anyone. Yet in a world where we can get another Call of Duty game (the WWII ones, not the pretty awesome modern day one), why can't some developer pick up a truly interesting IP and run with it?

Escape Velocity is one of those games. Initially released by Ambrosia Software for the Mac (yes, yes, I know) back in 1992, it put you in the role of a prospective starship captain adrift in a decent sized portion of the galaxy. You bought your first ship with whatever meager funds you'd scraped together in your life pre-space, and set out to find adventure, treasure, and that mythic planet of the enormous-breasted space whores. You played from a top-down, 2D view, and I've basically described the entire game. Sure, there was some background story about a war between the central governing systems and the outer rebellious ones, but I never much bothered with that. Instead, what appealed so much about the game was the true sandbox nature of it. Want to spend your time lugging freight between two distant systems, just to eek out a 2-credit profit per trip? Go for it (see, it would be perfect for those grind-loving WoW players)! Want to fly off into asteroid fields and fight pirates? Why not?

The game featured hundreds of star systems, and each one had some combination of planets, moons, and space stations that you could land at in order to trade, pick up missions, or look at all the pretty space ships you couldn't afford yet (only 9000 more cargo runs)! As far as your ship went, you could customize weapons loadouts, navigation/jamming equipment, engines, armor, and shields. However, the coolest function was the ability to disable enemy ships and then board them, often for the purposes of salvage but sometimes with the intent of taking control of the ship. This allowed for some pretty awesome gameplay later on, as you could take over the massive capital ships of either the Confederation or the Rebellion, ships that had some pretty sweet weapons systems, as well as their own sets of smaller fighters that could launch. Once you got one of these bad boys, you could actually attempt to take over entire planets, at which point you set the tax rates and other features of the planet (or moon or station).

In addition, Ambrosia's games supported an almost infinite number of user modifications. You could create new systems, new ships, new factions, or just create a way to give yourself a ton of money. This gave an already deep, replayable game almost infinite potential scope: you could play through other people's darkest fantasies (like that planet of giant breasted space whores someone mentioned before).

EV's setting is one that would no doubt appeal to a great number of gamers: take over your own ship and do whatever the fuck you want with it. Change the top-down view for an in-cockpit one, maybe add a bit more of a story (but allow the player to ignore it if they want), and you've got the makings of a great game. Hell, you could even turn it into an MMO if that's the only way you can convince a studio to get on board (and let's be honest, nerds would love being the captain of their own ship even more than being an elf). Make the new version of Escape Velocity everything Freelancer should have been, and make a shit-ton of money for your trouble.