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Novastorm is part racing and part combat, with
everything taking place on a track (meaning it's a rail shooter where
your movement through the game environments is pre-determined but you
can move your ship on screen to avoid obstacles and enemy fire as well
as shoot yourfoes). It's from the same developers responsible for the
Wipeout series, so you can expect the same high-speed action. The goal
of the game is to save the human race from renegade computers that have
threatened humankind's existence. You fly the Scavenger 7 spacecraft
through trenches and over mountains, shooting at oncoming targets. The
terrain interacts with you, which offers some cool effects, but it can
also destroy you. In other words, don't get caught up in all the visual
glory of the game, or you'll pay the ultimate price. You can also find
power-ups, battle huge bosses, and generally blast anything on the
screen. Your primary tactic must be to enhance the power of your
scavenger spacefighter by collecting gold, silver and bronze "tokens"
which you can exchange for extra weaponry. You begin with a
single-shot laser cannon, but you will be able to replace it with a
double-shot and even with a triple-shot model. Many other weapons are
available, like the spread shot, the orbiter (an external self-powered
drone that will sweep in an orbit around your ship), a wingman (a
remote, unmanned, powered microvessel), a drone, aka trailer, homing
missiles, a shield etc... You will fly through magnificent 3D texture
landscapes (the game's exciting full motion video sequences incorporate
fractal engine technology, allowing smooth video transfer. The PC
version features a completely reworked soundtrack by Rik Ede with
additional enhancements to the sound effects and voices and is considered
the best version and an almost entirely different experience. The
rendering and level layouts were also significantly improved from the
console versions. Although only on one disc and the FMV not full-screen,
the video encoding and quality is comparable to the 2-disc Playstation version. |
