EVE is notable for many things, not least the fact that its single server still regularly attracts at least 5000 players at any one time, and recently cracked the record for the highest number of players on a server in a MMOG. Perhaps best described, although only vaguely, as the closest an MMORPG has got to the sensibilities of Elite, EVE features a huge and sprawling universe populated with space stations and asteroid fields, all aching to be explored by its subscribers in their space ships. The now defunct Earth and Beyond, EA’s crack at a space-based MMORPG, was similar in concept, but relied far more on a linear story structure and levelling treadmill in what was a consequently simpler and shallower take on life in outer space. The upside of this is that it was a particularly sociable game and far more personal – you would frequently run around with other players’ avatars and group up with other players’ ships. EVE, which has mopped up many old E&B players since that went belly-up, is on the other end of the spectrum – it’s big, dark, cold, lonely space.