No Gravity: The Plague Of Mind Coming to PSN Tomorrow

[PS3 News]

Today Sebastien Rubens of the PlayStation Blog announced news that No Gravity: The Plague Of Mind is hitting PSN tomorrow. To quote:

No Gravity, a science-fiction space journey that goes beyond a simple space shooter, hit the headlines for the first time in 2007 as a "homebrew" game for the PSP. It was acclaimed as a game that "puts tons of retail games to shame with its incredible polish."

It was a long time ago, and since then, No Gravity has been entirely rewritten and improved to meet higher standards: this is the new version you will be able to download on the PlayStation Store tomorrow for your PSP.

You will be able to choose up to 5 spaceships (paired with pilots), each of them having different capabilities that you can use to your advantage across 31 different missions (each mission is composed of different sectors).

Some spaceships are faster which can help with time limited missions, or have more powerful weapons which help destroy bosses, or have better shields which can help sustain attacks from highly powerful weapons.

The most powerful two ships will be unlocked when you reach some specific goals. Note that you will be able to use any ship in the first person, but also in the third person.

will start discovering the game with a tutorial mission designed to help you get to grips with the handling of this game, offering great playability, by training yourself to fly whilst locking and shooting at asteroids. Following this introduction, the game will offer you a wide range of gameplay which you'll discover as you progress through the plot.

Although most of the video footage and previous coverage for No Gravity has been about the shooting aspects, the game also has more complex flight challenges such as escort missions, cargo retrieval using short range sonar, time limited missions, and even infiltration and strategy!

There is a level which illustrates many aspects of the game. During the first four minutes you must solely protect a group of spaceships until reinforcements arrive (Note: we spent a lot of time chasing a bug there!). You have to choose what ship to protect depending on their damage level (at least 50% of the convoy must survive) and also manage correctly the limited number of boosters you have left.

This is a stressful sector because you have to handle a lot of information at the same time. When the reinforcements arrive, you need to continue protecting them using this time, a more strategic approach with your wingmen (hoping a group a them will defend your cargo more effectively).

If you have a look at the trailer, you will notice that some enemies are huge. Some can be really HUGE! You'll even have to fly into an enemy spaceship to destroy it from within! (Does it remind you of a well known film?)

In the images below, you are helping one enormous battleship fight against another huge battleship, and the fight sequence is truly awesome (lots of explosions, directional outstanding sound, and finishing in a massive explosion!).

But don't worry - you will face standard "bosses" and you will even find a giant mechanical kind of crab. ;)

When I was testing the game, there was one boss I could not kill...I asked our 2D artist (and main tester) how to kill it and his advice was: "with rage!!!" (I am sure you'll get what I mean when you get there).

From time to time, you will have some missions where you will be able to "rest" a little, for example, when you have to retrieve cargo from shipwrecks in the asteroids world.

The sonar only works at short range, so you will not "hear anything" as long as you do not fly close to the wrecks. The visuals in this particular level are dramatic, mixing dark space, flying closely to wrecks, and really stunning lens flare/lighting effects.

The game will take you through six different worlds: "normal" space, asteroid worlds, through to the mother planet of your enemies, propagating the plague of mind. It means you will not only be flying in space. At least six levels are over a planet and two other levels are not in space.

One of the last levels, over the enemy's mother planet, is huge! You will have to destroy many energy generators and radars spread across a massive area.

The game is concluded in an apotheosis by the destruction of several generators within the planet.

We hope you will enjoy this game and we would be pleased to hear your feedback at mailto:nogravity@anozor.com.




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[lostrophet]

looks good... will certainly try it

[Zoddi]

reminds me of the old wing commander games... really liked them

[daveribz]

I will definitely buy this game, just because it was suppose to be a homebrew at first. This is a great exemple of how free developpers can do great games.