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NovaStrike Announced
A new shooter called NovaStrike has been officially announced for the PlayStation Network by independent developer Tiki Games. Who is Tiki Games? According to their new site, they're "...comprised of industry veterans that have worked together on prior games and have an established and proven team dynamic." Okay, sounds fine to me. I just hope NovaStrike, also their first game, is good. From NovaStrike's debut trailer, it looks like Tiki Games is on the right path for grand shooter action. One thing that stands out to me is that NovaStrike is not an omni-directional shooter. Not completely, at least. Thank the shooter gods! I'm all for new original 2D style shooters on PSN and Xbox Live, but every newly released shooter on each service have featured dual-analog shooting style gameplay. Basically the only exceptions are Battlestar Galactica and Wing Commander; you could fly anywhere, just not shoot anywhere. With NovaStrike, and East Asia Soft's upcoming port of PC the awesome shooter Söldner-X, the PlayStation 3 will finally get some non-omnis. I'm just hoping there is a strafe option in NovaStrike because there isn't enough strafing in shooters. You have a lot of shoot wherever or shoot forward, but strafing is a little rare. The game description isn't the original or alluring; it just tells you exactly what you need to know. NovaStrike is a seven-stage, free-roaming, overhead perspective shooter with the player controlling a prototype space fighter against the Draelus invasion. Shooter history shows us that saving the galaxy usually requires the use of some sort of ultra-powerful prototype space fighter, which NovaStrike has. The ship has nine upgradeable weapons, with separate weapons for air and ground opponents. The ship "...will combat enemy fighters, bombers, kamikazes, aces, carriers, and destroyers, all leading to an end-Boss fight" and multi-sectioned enemies. See, it's all standard shooter fare. However, one thing in the game's description stood out to me; You are not the only one fighting as "...friendly fighters, bombers, and destroyers will aid you in your efforts to vanquish the Draelus invasion." This isn't one ship versus an entire space armada? Well, it probably mostly is, with your ally ships playing a support role, but I'd like to know how much you actually get to see them fight alongside you. Oh, and the ship in NovaStrike reminds me of the dropship from Aliens. Yes, it's cool. NovaStrike will support the DualShock 3, but I didn't see anything about co-op play. Hopefully it will be in the final game, or at least added as downloadable content later. Tiki Games mentions that they will be developing additional content for NovaStrike (along with other unannounced projects) so we'll be seeing more goodies for it after its Q2 release date. - Shawn - 3/11/08 |
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