Re: Omikron: The Nomad Soul - PC or Dreamcast? By Pulsart Thu May 20, 2010 4:53 pm I want to play this game as well, but I read that Nvidia's drivers borked the game, so I have to revert to pre-100 Forceware series in order to play it.
David Cage is a man of extraordinary vision. Whether you believe his games match his ambition is a very personal thing. I will argue with you that Fahrenheit is one of the most exciting games I've ever played, even though it's broken in about 657 ways. Perhaps this is what's most exciting about Quantic Dream's output. However, I cannot find a similar love for Omikron: The Nomad Soul. And that's not because I can't run it on my PC.
The story brings together new Hero characters along with familiar faces from the Fire Emblem series. Lead your army to victory to save the Kingdom of Askr. Fight against your rivals around the world. Your high score and ranking will determine your rewards—items that can increase your Heroes' abilities. A list of all current and announced heroes in Fire Emblem Heroes.Also see Hero availability chart for a different visual representation, dividing heroes by source and weapon type, and Series Distribution for statistics on Heroes based on their game of appearance. Fire Emblem Heroes Wiki The community-maintained wiki about maps, Heroes, mechanics, and more from Fire Emblem Heroes, a free-to-play tactical turn-based RPG with a gacha system developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. Fire emblem heroes unit builder. The game features numerous Hero characters from the Fire Emblem series and brand-new characters created by artists Yusuke Kozaki, Shigeki Maeshima, and Yoshiku. Some Heroes will fight at your side.
It appears that the more recent ATI cards have seen fit to stop supporting Z-buffering, or something similar. I'm not Richard Leadbetter I'm afraid, so these words sound like buzzing to me, but what I know is it means The Nomad Soul paints the screen in giant black squares with every movement. For a game that's based around a combination of adventuring, first-person combat, third-person fighting and spotting teeny tiny objects on the floor, a mostly black screen isn't ideal (Richard would agree, I'm sure). Which put me in something of a pickle, if it weren't for the nagging certainty that I owned another copy. For Dreamcast.
Cancelled on both PlayStation and PS2, The Nomad Soul came out for PC and Dreamcast. Of all systems. It's set in the city of Omikron (we'll get to the game name confusion in a bit) on the planet Phaenon. But you're not playing a citizen of that world - you're playing you, playing a videogame. By beginning the game you've agreed to have your soul transferred into the body of a citizen of Omikron, and thus control him as an avatar. It's an opening moment of Brechtian estrangement that ensures you're aware that this isn't going to follow conventions so much as dissemble them. Your body previously belonged to a police officer who was investigating a series of murders. So it's from there you pick up.
I'm impressed my Dreamcast still works. It's not been switched on in three years at the very least. An Xbox would surely have turned doorstop by now. A PSX burned through a dozen chips. But the Dreamcast must have been built like a 1950s refrigerator. The gasping and wheezing as it spins the disc is like a soundtrack to 2001 and Virtua Tennis 2.
The Dreamcast version of the game, released six months after the PC version, was criticised in 2000 for falling short of the PC build. Weaker graphics, long load times, weird bubbly voices in places, and most of all, no dialogue changes to reflect the platform, leaving players instructed they were playing on a computer, staring at a monitor. But take that, PC! You can't play it any more. The DC, like the brave tortoise, has won the race.
Except all those things are horribly true. It looks phenomenally awful, a smear of brown and grey filled with polygonal characters that belong in the mid-nineties. Walking through a door takes an extraordinary amount of time, needing to load in two separate chunks each time you want to walk out of a shop entrance, staggering and croaking throughout. And oh dear me, when you're attempting to break the fourth wall it's a good idea to make sure you're referring to the circumstances the player is actually in. I'm holding a controller in front of my TV, Omikron. Not sat in front of my monitor. I think you might have the wrong soul.
But such ideas! This notion of being you trapped in a character's body is a really nice one, somewhat literalising the way we understand our role in gaming. But it's taken a step further. You're not just a character, you're a character in a game. It says so. Talking with one character you're given the conversation option, 'What does it matter if I die? It's only a videogame.' In fact, you're told, Omikron is a game created by demons in order to capture our souls. Which brings us to the name.
Wow, apparently I am the only person who liked this game.I rented it for the DC back when it was new, and played the heck out of it. The text wasn't ever a problem for me. I eventually bought the PC version, since at the time It was cheaper. I prefer the PC version because you can push the resolution higher, and the controls are a little better.I really enjoy Quantic Dream's style in games.
Heavy Rain is without a doubt their best game for all the reasons possible, but both indigo prophecy and omkiron share some strong similarities in style. These games are about wandering around and becoming a person within a virtual world. Being over a decade old, the world isn't as detailed or as intricate as heavy rain, but at the time it was awesome. The plot has multiple paths and not every playthrough is the same. I found the world interesting, and the atmosphere intriguing.
It is definitely a slow game, though, and lacks the refinement of other games from the time, such as Shenmue. The FPS and Fighter sections are the weakest moments, and I much prefer the QTE style events employed in indigo and heavy rain more.