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Dom Robinson reviews
Eidos Interactive Limited
Dom Robinson reviews
The Nomad Soul
for Dreamcast
Distributed by
Eidos Interactive Limited
Price: œ39.99
Players : 1
The Nomad Soul originally started life as “Omikron”, the name of the city
in which the game is set.
You are contacted by Kay’l, a man from a parallel universe that’s desperately
in need of help and, of course, only you can save them. You will take control of his body,
but look after it as it’s the only one he’s got. If you do get killed though, someone
else’s body will take his place and your soul will be transfered.
The game is nothing if not ambitious. It boasts an epic adventure storyline
with unprecedented depth and realism as you aim to solve the many puzzles
that prevent you from escaping alive. Shooting and combat, Virtua-Fighter-style,
are included, as is motion-capture by several martial arts world champions.
Finally, it declares that you are to be placed in a huge living environment
in real time 3D with hundreds of passers-by and vehicles to interact with.
You can only carry a certain number of items in your “Sneak”, a control
panel placed on your left arm which you appear to pick at Predator-style as
you access certain items, some of which can be combined with others. If you
need to get about, hail a Slider with your Sneak – it’s a taxi service that
picks you up and drops you outside your chosen destination.
Finally, if you’re really lucky you’ll come across David Bowie actually
making an appearance somewhere in the game.
The graphics are the best thing about this game and provide a detailed and
atmospheric city. The sound is very good too. Typical in-game sounds
aren’t much to shout about, but in some scenes there are surround sound
moments worth a listen and the game also contains an original soundtrack
by David Bowie and his Tin Machine partner Reeves Gabrels, including
eight songs from Bowie’s latest album, “..hours”.
The playability is the main problem with this game. It’s marketed as a
go-anywhere and do-anything game and anything but linear, but in fact
that’s just how it feels when you play it. When you come across any
character in the game, if you don’t need to speak to them, Kay’l will
either say “He looks busy” or the person will tell you to politely go away.
You can “interact” with cars too, but that’s called “trying to get run
over” and will be the quickest way to get killed, believe me.
The game also appears to pause at random times – it’s just the Dreamcast
accessing the game disc but it’s not good when everything grinds to a halt.
Overall, the Nomad Soul looks and sounds nice, but doesn’t play too well and
leaves you running about in frustration trying to find out what to do next. It
would be nice to have some kind of direction here as you’re left to fathom
things out, but when you finally do, you realise you can only get on
because you’ve finally done something elsewhere – without possibly realising
it at the time – making this the incredibly linear experience it promised it
wasn’t meant to be.
GRAPHICS: 4/5
SOUND: 4/5
PLAYABILITY: 2/5
ORIGINALITY: 3/5
ENJOYMENT: 2/5
OVERALL: 3/5
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.