Adv: Notrium [by Ville Mönkkönen]

As I first began playing Notrium the game concept reminded heavily of the old Reflexive title Zax, while the graphics are very similar to Crimsonland.

However, upon further review I started to realize just how much of interest had been packed into this great little freeware game. You control a single character, a captain whose ship has crashed on the planet. Your need is to get off of the planet. You move about the planet gathering parts so that you can construct the needed items to both survive and to leave the planet. During play you need to focus on 3 main items. First health and second food. Nothing too big there you might think, but running out of food will quickly start draining your health and leave you dead in a matter of minutes. The third item you keep track of is your character's temperature. The planet you are one ranges through wide fluxuations of temperature. Extremely hot at the high point of the day and very cold at night. This leads to you needing to take refuge as you move about under trees during the day and near fires at the worst part of the night. The changes from day to night in the game are interesting.

As you gather pieces, you need to combine them in order to create the items you'll need to survive, such as a laser turret. This is done in a rather original manner. When you want to combine items you are given a series of dials. The number is dependent on the number of items you want to combine. You must solve the puzzle of how to make the dials all align. It is more difficult than you think, but not so bad as to be frustrating.

Notrium features a random generator and multiple winning paths that makes each game a new adventure in every way. The graphics are a little sub-par, though they don't take away from the game. Sound is well done, creating a creepy atmosphere that you might expect with a space related game. Overall this is a very well-done effort that will keep you coming back for at least a couple of days as you try to figure it out, (maybe something we'll get a full review done of some day as it really deserves some in-depth playing). Only real complaint is that the difficulty of the game is a bit high, and it will take several tries before you start figuring out how to survive past 2 days.
Added: September 21st 2003
Reviewer: Russell Carroll
Score:
Related Link: Official Website
Hits: 6918
Language: english

  

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