Notrium, Free Indie RPG PC Game
Crash landing on the unforgiving planet of Notrium is about as fun as it sounds. That isn't to say that Notrium isn't a good game or that you won't enjoy it. It is and you probably will, what I mean to say by that is that Notrium does not pity the fool – it kills the fool fairly quickly. I played the game on the easiest setting and after just a few minutes of braving cold rain and punching what appeared to be the last remaining human into non existence, I found that I had lost the game.
Although it is most certainly an RPG in the sense that you'll spend vast amounts of time trying to get gear, at least you won't be doing it in a senseless grind. No, instead you'll be doing it in an effort to get the heck of the god forsaken planet and back to civilization, where you're less likely to be slaughtered by monsters that can turn invisible on a whim.
Notrium combines several different game play elements. There's some old school WASD action in avoiding missiles and whatnot, there's a need to develop a keen sense of timing and there's the comforting 'spam left click to punch aliens dead' functionality that should keep most gamers fairly happy.
The game is conducted in a top down fashion, which I usually don't like at all, but which works rather well in this game. I especially like the way that trees turn transparent when one is under them, which allows you to see your little avatar down below.
The game includes a map editor and is also fairly mod friendly, which is most excellent. The map editor didn't seem to do much when I played with it, but the fact that it exists at all could possibly be percieved as something of a bonus I suppose.
There are several different classes you can play, though character customization is severely limited. You can play as a human, which means that you'll die pretty quickly if you run out of food, as an Alien, that not only eats a lot but which can carry a lot of food, but can't use guns at all, as an Andriod, which doesn't need to eat at all, but finds regaining health much more difficult, and as a Psionic, which basically has to survive via the power of positive thinking. Each of these races have entirely different abilities and will require different styles of play to suceed. The developer, Ville Monkonen really is to be congratulated on making an indie game with such genuine depth and replay value.
