Novadrome
Posted December 20, 2006
From the makers of Carmageddon, Novadrome is yet another car-combat title that actually holds more similarities to Re-volt than the bloody carnage of that ancient PC game. Stainless Games decided to go with a futuristic theme, but just a pittance of a story integrated into the gameplay. Basically, the idea behind Novadrome is that a robot race called the Novalords kidnap creatures from planets all over the universe to compete in gladiator style events. While the concept certainly supports car combat, the presentation is nothing more than a couple text screens and a futuristic design to the menu structure. It’s probably one of the least impressive presentations I’ve seen for an original Live Arcade title. 
Gameplay:
The game is split into several modes: Career, Arcade, Free Play, and Multiplayer. Career mode basically takes the player through the entire spectrum of races and types of cars. Arcade mode allows the player to attempt achievement challenges on a similar level of difficulty found in career mode. Free play essentially provides the gamer a place to hone their skills in a customizable environment. Within those single player modes, the matches vary between regular races, deathmatch modes, and random spawn modes. Points are always awarded for destroying enemy cars regardless of the game type, so it’s in your best interest to spam the fire trigger.
There are 24 cars to unlock, each marginally better than the last. The car attributes are divided into four subsets: Power, Defense, Attack, and Grip. While the cars cannot be upgraded manually, it’s easy to pick a helpful car according to the type of race. Fast cars are great for the checkpoint races while slow, heavy cars will obliterate the competition in the deathmatch mode. Unfortunately, the physics engine is very floaty and often spins or flips the car out of control. Any jump or even a bump in the road almost always means trouble. The developer did provide a car flip button to straighten out the vehicle, but they definitely force overuse due to the physics.
The weaponry is fairly standard for a futuristic car combat title. There are six types of mounted firearms to collect: the common laser blaster, a plasma cannon, an electricity discharge blaster, a flame-thrower, a ramming repel gun, and a gravity-spinning weapon. Weapons can be upgraded in strength via power-ups strewn about the track. Folks will always have a steady supply of the laser blasters on the arena floor, but the more powerful weapons will be tough to reach on the advanced maps. While weapons are targeted on an upcoming enemy, I’m disappointed that weapons cannot be fired completely directionally. Often I found myself attempting to straighten my car out just to get a bead on the baddies. An area attack, such as a low-level nuke, would have been perfect in that type of situation.
Multiplayer dishes out tons of options for a customized Xbox Live player or ranked match. Once the six game modes and 15 maps are finally unlocked in career mode, players have access to a bevy of selections. Matches can be set for 5 to 50 points or 1 to 10 laps and the amount of swarming A.I. robots can be increased dramatically. Also, Stainless offers up an excellent car control option for those just starting the game. The type of available cars in your match can be set to All, Unlocked Only, or Set Limit. Set limit is great for restricting other players to a certain class of vehicle. I found matches to be slightly laggy, even on a supposed solid connection. This makes shooting cars a painful chore when they are jumping all over the map. Also, starting a match without the maximum eight players often leads to boredom, as the maps are too large to only play with a few people.
Beyond the main gameplay, Stainless offers up a few options via the menu. You can choose from eight different controller schematics or skim though the twelve-page help guide if you are having trouble competing. Also, the developer provided a wealth of leaderboard information, which is split into overall or weekly rankings. On a side note, there is an option for downloadable content within the in-game menu, but nothing is available at the time of this review.
The achievements are weighted toward completion of the career mode, as only the most powerful cars are competitive on certain challenges. They shell out the standard 200 gamerscore points split over 12 tasks. The difficulty of the achievements seems very high at the outset of the game, but their challenging nature is indicative of dedication to playing the game. For instance, the many of the arcade challenges, like holding the blue token in a Hounded match for the entire round, will take multiple attempts. It’s refreshing to see tough achievements in an arcade title, but many players may decide to quit before attempting to get the full set.
Graphics:
Visually, the game is pretty bland. The car models are fairly detailed and have a decent amount of damage collision effects when shattered, but the remainder of the level textures are dull and uninteresting. The weapon-fire lighting effects are vibrant, but the color scheme for the level environment is muted. On the plus side, the frame rate is pretty much rock solid, regardless of the number of enemies on the screen. I was annoyed by the on screen enemy indicator. It’s tough to pick out enemies from a distance and the directional compass in the corner of the screen isn’t as accurate as it could be.
Audio:
The midi, techno tune that plays in the menu background is repetitive drivel. The in-match music isn’t as annoying, but it’s mostly subdued by the sound effects. The auditory effects are a bit too high on the treble register, but they do add to the futuristic appeal to the game. Oddly, the developer didn’t include any countdown voice to notify the player of the end of a match, which would have greatly aided my career matches. Thankfully, Stainless included options to lower the volume on the music or effects. They also provided an option in the menu to turn voice chat on or off for those too lazy to take off the communicator glued to your head.
Overall:
Novadrome’s main fault is a general lack of personality and a bit of monotony. It takes far too long to unlock cars/maps in career mode for multiplayer matches and it’s just not rewarding enough to continue. I applaud Stainless for creating an arcade title that’s original and packed with features, but they failed to capture the essence that makes car-combat games like Carmageddon or Twisted Metal simply entertaining. It’s the kind of arcade title that’s fun in brief, ten-minute spurts, but provides little addictive value. For anyone that enjoyed Re-volt back in the early days of the original Xbox, it might be worth a purchase. You should definitely download the demo before shelling out 800 Marketplace points for this arcade title.
Gameplay:
The game is split into several modes: Career, Arcade, Free Play, and Multiplayer. Career mode basically takes the player through the entire spectrum of races and types of cars. Arcade mode allows the player to attempt achievement challenges on a similar level of difficulty found in career mode. Free play essentially provides the gamer a place to hone their skills in a customizable environment. Within those single player modes, the matches vary between regular races, deathmatch modes, and random spawn modes. Points are always awarded for destroying enemy cars regardless of the game type, so it’s in your best interest to spam the fire trigger.
There are 24 cars to unlock, each marginally better than the last. The car attributes are divided into four subsets: Power, Defense, Attack, and Grip. While the cars cannot be upgraded manually, it’s easy to pick a helpful car according to the type of race. Fast cars are great for the checkpoint races while slow, heavy cars will obliterate the competition in the deathmatch mode. Unfortunately, the physics engine is very floaty and often spins or flips the car out of control. Any jump or even a bump in the road almost always means trouble. The developer did provide a car flip button to straighten out the vehicle, but they definitely force overuse due to the physics.
The weaponry is fairly standard for a futuristic car combat title. There are six types of mounted firearms to collect: the common laser blaster, a plasma cannon, an electricity discharge blaster, a flame-thrower, a ramming repel gun, and a gravity-spinning weapon. Weapons can be upgraded in strength via power-ups strewn about the track. Folks will always have a steady supply of the laser blasters on the arena floor, but the more powerful weapons will be tough to reach on the advanced maps. While weapons are targeted on an upcoming enemy, I’m disappointed that weapons cannot be fired completely directionally. Often I found myself attempting to straighten my car out just to get a bead on the baddies. An area attack, such as a low-level nuke, would have been perfect in that type of situation.
Multiplayer dishes out tons of options for a customized Xbox Live player or ranked match. Once the six game modes and 15 maps are finally unlocked in career mode, players have access to a bevy of selections. Matches can be set for 5 to 50 points or 1 to 10 laps and the amount of swarming A.I. robots can be increased dramatically. Also, Stainless offers up an excellent car control option for those just starting the game. The type of available cars in your match can be set to All, Unlocked Only, or Set Limit. Set limit is great for restricting other players to a certain class of vehicle. I found matches to be slightly laggy, even on a supposed solid connection. This makes shooting cars a painful chore when they are jumping all over the map. Also, starting a match without the maximum eight players often leads to boredom, as the maps are too large to only play with a few people.
Beyond the main gameplay, Stainless offers up a few options via the menu. You can choose from eight different controller schematics or skim though the twelve-page help guide if you are having trouble competing. Also, the developer provided a wealth of leaderboard information, which is split into overall or weekly rankings. On a side note, there is an option for downloadable content within the in-game menu, but nothing is available at the time of this review.
The achievements are weighted toward completion of the career mode, as only the most powerful cars are competitive on certain challenges. They shell out the standard 200 gamerscore points split over 12 tasks. The difficulty of the achievements seems very high at the outset of the game, but their challenging nature is indicative of dedication to playing the game. For instance, the many of the arcade challenges, like holding the blue token in a Hounded match for the entire round, will take multiple attempts. It’s refreshing to see tough achievements in an arcade title, but many players may decide to quit before attempting to get the full set.
Graphics:
Visually, the game is pretty bland. The car models are fairly detailed and have a decent amount of damage collision effects when shattered, but the remainder of the level textures are dull and uninteresting. The weapon-fire lighting effects are vibrant, but the color scheme for the level environment is muted. On the plus side, the frame rate is pretty much rock solid, regardless of the number of enemies on the screen. I was annoyed by the on screen enemy indicator. It’s tough to pick out enemies from a distance and the directional compass in the corner of the screen isn’t as accurate as it could be.
Audio:
The midi, techno tune that plays in the menu background is repetitive drivel. The in-match music isn’t as annoying, but it’s mostly subdued by the sound effects. The auditory effects are a bit too high on the treble register, but they do add to the futuristic appeal to the game. Oddly, the developer didn’t include any countdown voice to notify the player of the end of a match, which would have greatly aided my career matches. Thankfully, Stainless included options to lower the volume on the music or effects. They also provided an option in the menu to turn voice chat on or off for those too lazy to take off the communicator glued to your head.
Overall:
Novadrome’s main fault is a general lack of personality and a bit of monotony. It takes far too long to unlock cars/maps in career mode for multiplayer matches and it’s just not rewarding enough to continue. I applaud Stainless for creating an arcade title that’s original and packed with features, but they failed to capture the essence that makes car-combat games like Carmageddon or Twisted Metal simply entertaining. It’s the kind of arcade title that’s fun in brief, ten-minute spurts, but provides little addictive value. For anyone that enjoyed Re-volt back in the early days of the original Xbox, it might be worth a purchase. You should definitely download the demo before shelling out 800 Marketplace points for this arcade title.