RATING:
Graphics: 6
Gameplay: 5
Performance: 8
Overall: 6
Pros: plenty of customisation options, pretty good sprite based graphics.
Cons: content is too repetitive and combat is little boring.
This week we did a more extensive play through of the open beta phase of Nova Raider, a browser-based isometric space shooter that players can play through the web or on their iOS device by downloading it from the App Store. Players start out as an inexperienced pilot in a Galaxy of Pirates, Space Monsters, Aliens and other dangerous enemies, offering up ship customisation options, PVE content and world PVP. The Game at its core has players completing missions and killing enemies to acquire in game currency and levelling up to gain access to and buy higher level gear to kill higher level enemies.
As we tested the game through the browser it became apparent very quickly that the game was definitely built with the App Store in mind, the simplistic controls and mechanics lend itself extremely well to an iOS touchscreen including the ship movement which is done with a single mouse click to fly to that point or holding down the mouse left click to continuously fly towards the cursor (as you would with a touchscreen holding your finger on the screen). The extent of combat is clicking an enemy to begin auto firing upon it once you are within range and switching between your different weapons as you deplete your ammo, again it is a basic style of combat that is well suited to an App but is not as progressive for a browser MMO in comparison to other titles.
Players are continually driven through the game by the mission log, starting out as the tutorial to guide players through the various features and basic mechanics its turns into a constant source of XP and Uranium (the games primary currency) encouraging players to continue working towards long-term quests e.g. earn X amount of XP from killing random mobs, as well as quests you would be performing anyway such as reaching the next level. The XP is more valuable than the Uranium in terms of rewards, Uranium can be picked up relatively easy by grinding enemy ships, each dropping around 100 uranium per kill; considerably faster than the 1000 Uranium you might acquire from a five-minute quest when it takes only a handful of shots to kill an enemy and there are hundreds of them flying around.
Uranium comes easier but it also goes just as quickly, used to research new technologies to gain access to new weapons, modifications and class ships, each of which must then also be purchased once they are available through the new research tech. Research cannot ever go beyond the players actual level and so players must also ensure they continue grinding XP. There are dozens of ships to choose from and a decent variety of mods to attach to your ship, with only a certain number of slots available players must choose the mobd that are the most important to them.
From time to time we got new PVE quests which would take us away from the primary Galaxy map, each map having a specific level requirement before you can enter it and so you spend quite a lot of time in the same area grinding the same enemies. The PVE quests are instanced based but players are prompted to invite their friends to join the group and help them, rewarding players with more XP the more friends that the player has join them, therefore encouraging players to try and get their friends to play the game. Very few of the missions are all that difficult but they come with a nice range of base defence horde modes fighting off waves of enemies, escort missions to guide automated NPC ships through dangerous areas and others. One of our favourites missions was one of the early missions where we had to shoot space spiders that wouldn’t take damage but would fly away from us as we had to wrangle them towards a space worm that was flying around the screen that would kill them once they were in range. Albeit the game totally bugged the first time we entered this mission and none of the ship icons appeared and all we could see was a pop-up every so often telling us that one of the spiders had been destroyed as the worm made its way around the map.
One of the more frustrating elements of the game for us was the incessant need of clicking items as they dropped when you destroyed an enemy, including Stars (premium currency) and Uranium, as well as the scattered mineral resources that are strewn around every Galaxy map. It was annoying having to stop each time so that you could accurately target something to pick it up as opposed to simply picking it up with a shortcut button when in range, or without the need of pushing a button at all and simply passing by the item collecting it. So tedious was the task of having to go right next to each resource, particularly the minerals, that as often as not we just left them even though they were a source of money to trade them in at the Market.
We attempted some PVP in the queued instances, unfortunately the game didn’t trigger for a PVP match and instead, and each occasion we tried, sent us into a match against a bot. The battles consisted of meeting the enemy in the middle of the map, sitting there and exchanging fire until one of us was destroyed. Not that PVP is particularly tactical, our PVP level was equal to our ship level and so any players above our level were unable to attack us, so one point we were attacked by a random person who is the same level in world PVP and figured we would fight back (of course). As a tank class we had some pretty decent hit points by this point as well as a decent arsenal of weapons upgraded, and managed to start dropping our attackers health pretty low, much quicker than his heal kits could keep him alive; unfortunately at this point they just ran straight to the nearest public healing satellite and sat there fighting whilst constantly being healed (kind of silly that you can heal from these whilst fighting). The combat is basic and essentially comes down to whoever has the best kitted out ship will be the winner or whoever runs out of resources first.
For a casual space MMO the game isn’t that bad, on a mobile device then it is the kind of no thinking mindless level up content that could be enjoyed, but as a browser game we feel that it was just a little too undeveloped, simplistic and repetitive to hold our attention for any long period. The time it takes to get from one Galaxy map to the next was just simply way too long and given that the content in a map is very similar to the next anyway it mostly didn’t feel worth progressing at all.
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