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Developer: Shin'en
Publisher: Majesco Games
Genre: Shooter
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 19 Jul 05
User Rating
5 (1 vote) -
- What could have been the killer game for the DS fails to take advantage of the platform and turns out a very ordinary arcade shooter.
Overview
I remember a few years back when Ikaruga was released for the Nintendo Gamecube, which features old-school shooter gameplay in a modern console, something which very few games have tries and succeeded. The game was extremely challenging, and despite some minor flaws, was a very solid game. This is exactly what I was expecting from this latest game from Majesco Games, Nanostray, which went back to the old school shooter style gameplay. So does this game manage to take an old idea and make it fun and fresh? Read our full review to find out!
Gameplay
When you sit back and think about the shooter genre and its best chance to perform at this stage in time, it would be on the Nintendo DS for two reasons. First and foremost, this platform lacks the killer games that would have made it popular with fans, which makes it very disappointing as a whole. And the second reason why this is a great platform for this genre is that the DS is a system with dual screens that sets up beautifully for this type of game that plays in a vertical style similar to the Nintendo DS's design. So can Nanostray take advantage of both of these great opportunities?
So let's jump into the review of this game, which will start with the three modes you have to choose from - Adventure, Arcade, and Challenge. The Adventure mode is where you are going to find most of the gameplay. I was excepting there to be some sort of storyline in this game, which for whatever reason has been omitted by the developers. So basically you are thrown into the game with no background info, and just trying to take out all of the enemies.
The action in this game plays exactly the way you would expect a shooter to play - very fast paced and a whole lot of action. With that being said, the touch screen is totally wasted, as you only use it to change weapons. That's it.
The game can be very challenging on the higher difficulty levels, as the AI can get much more intelligent and definitely makes things a lot harder. One thing I did feel right from the beginning was that this game really lacked any sort of originality. It felt like every other shooter out there, except this game had a useless touch screen. The action on the game also doesn't feel as exciting as other shooters. I felt as though the adventure mode could have really used more depth to it and a storyline wouldn't have hurt either.
The game also has some multiplayer support, but even that just seems lackluster and rather bland in comparison to what this game could have been. It's not that the game really does anything wrong, but instead is because the game could have been much better left me feeling quite disappointed.
Graphics
The best feature in Nanostray by far was the visuals, which for the DS are some of the best the platform has seen. The most impressive portion of the visuals was the amount of detail found throughout the game. Whether it is the vehicles or the environments, the whole game is full of color and detail, which really made this game stand out in my opinion. I felt as though the action n the game really was quite impressive and although nothing extra special was still great on its own merits.
Fun Factor
I am actually a fan of shooters, especially since they seem to really just bring you back to the good old days, but with that being said this game just didn't cut it for me. To me it just seemed like it was rushed in a way that really made this game not a whole lot of fun to play. There just wasn't a whole lot of variety in the game, and nor was there ever a reason as to why you were doing the things you were in the game. And finally the multiplayer support is much too limited to be of any fun.
Overall
Nanostray could have easily been a standout game on this platform, but unfortunately the game didn't cut it for me. I can't emphasize enough how much potential this game had on the Nintendo DS, but unfortunately none of this was put to use and we are left with a sub-par video game that I would only recommend at most as a rental.
- Gameplay
6.0 - Graphics
8.0 - Fun Factor
5.0 - Overall
6.0
