On paper Project Nomads looks like a creative blend of genres set in a unique
and interesting environment. The planet Aeres has exploded, leaving behind
floating islands of rock. The alien race responsible for the disaster, the
Sentinels, are still up to no good as blowing up the planet wasn't satisfying
enough. You take on the role of one of three mercenaries, or Nomads, who
must end the alien threat and rescue the other two mercenaries along the way.
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| Your island base. |
The game plays as an action/strategy hybrid. Your floating island
becomes your base of operations, and you can use "artifacts" you encounter in
your travels to build structures on your island. Each artifact is good for
one structure, so finding a turret artifact allows you to place a gun turret on
your island. You manage your island
from the third-person perspective of your character, running around your island
to fix structures, man defensive guns, or steer the island.
You won't be a prisoner on your island, though. As the game progresses
you'll have the opportunity to leave your island on foot and explore other
islands looking for artifacts and battling the Sentinels. You'll also have
the chance to man an aircraft in defense of your island and fly among the clouds
and islands.
The game begins on a decided high note. The opening cinematic reveals
the world of Aeres and renders its floating islands with some gorgeous graphics.
Lighting, textures, models, everything looks great. Watching the three heroes fight their way through an aerial ambush will fill you
with anticipation at the prospect of exploring Nomad's compelling world and
leave you itching to begin play. Unfortunately it won't take too long
for those expectations to come crashing down to Earth.
As a game with several different facets of play, you would think that the
developers could get at least one of them right. Sadly this is not the
case. You'll notice the problems with the game's third-person mode on the
very first levels. There is no strafing movement, only turns, so lining
yourself up to move through gaps, onto ledges, or across bridges is a
frustrating exercise in running in little circles (literally). Your character can't
jump, instead being equipped with a jetpack. The jetpack is hard to
control and seems to randomly determine how far it will send you, so jumping
onto small obstacles is entirely too difficult. To further compound your
frustration, the clipping and collision detection are not implemented quite
correctly and you'll sometimes get stuck and need to spin around a few times
before you can get moving again.
Later in the game you will need to explore other islands to gain more
artifacts for your base. This is when you'll encounter enemies that must
be dispatched with "spells". The spells amount to a couple of offensive
weapons that can be used to dispatch the brain-dead enemies whose attack
strategy is to charge at you until you kill them. The game's control
issues make collecting artifacts and making your way through an occasional
jumping puzzle to be more tedious than entertaining.
The game's central gameplay mode, managing your island base, also quickly
becomes tiresome due to gameplay issues and poor level design. You move
your island by entering a control tower, but your control is limited to turning
the single-speed engines on or off as you move between preprogrammed waypoints.
You can't even look around while up there; your view is locked straight ahead.
If you come under attack while "flying" your island, you must exit the tower,
quickly orient yourself, and then go loping off to the nearest gun installation.
If the gun is on a rise, then you get to struggle with the jet pack trying to
reach it. If other installations on your island are taking too much damage
(there's no way to see the damage level so you have to guess), then you must run
to the installation, click on it, select "repair" from the menu, and then run
back to the gun or control tower. Sound like fun?
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