Developer: OMNIDREAM CREATIONS
Publisher: OMNIDREAM CREATIONS
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Nightside – Preview
We recently had the amazing opportunity to test Nightside,a new RTS (real time strategy) game brought into the gaming-world by Omnidream Creations. The early access was released on April 2nd and will be in the early access stage for 4 months.
In Nightside you have a classical RTS setting, the war for resources, molded into a rather new and creative game. The setting for Nightside is on the dark side of an unknown planet with the Sole objective to mine the valuable “Green Ice”. Three races are available to achieve this objective with each very unique characteristics, units and play-styles. That does seem a little standard at fist but what makes this game so special is the game-setting, playing on the dark side of a planet offers multiple problems. The main challenge is vision, when you start off you can hardly see a thing and that gives of a thriller-like vibe not every RTS game offers.
The graphics of Nightside are only describable with one word: amazing. According to the developers log the graphics are 90% finished, and that is noticeable when playing. Considering the dark setting of the game, the maps and the small parts they show are not always visible. When talking about the unit designs however, there are only positive remarks. Every faction has the tech futuristic feel you expect from a game like Nightside and every unit has a distinct style and some beautiful animations. The battle animations are also unique for every faction and unit, and the combination of every graphic detail with the dark setting make this game look stunning. The sounds in Nightside are not impressive at all. This part is hopefully still under development because all you can hear is the background music RTS games usually use. There is a serious lack of ambient sounds and the unit sounds that you expect are not always present.
In the game you play as one of the 3 factions: Human, Nova and YX. Your Objective on the battlefield is to capture deposits of “Green Ice”, and defeat your enemies doing so. When starting of a game you have a small starters-package of Green Ice and your mother-ship. With this mother-ship you can do a variety of actions depending on your chosen faction, but your first option should always be to find some sort of drill/extraction unit for the Green Ice deposits you find in your vicinity. The next and maybe even the most important part is discovering the map because everything you see is as dark as the night. After those few steps you really need to consider your chosen faction and the possible strategies.
The Nova are the most basic faction, good units and a normal production, so when first turning on the game it would be wise to test out the Nova. YX on the other hand are somewhat different, they have cheap, fast and disposable units, the only thing your mother-ship does is creating cells and with those cells you can create buildings and units. The final faction is Human, they have strong but slower troops that come at a high cost. As a Human, your mother-ship creates platforms you can use to enhance with upgrades, like a barracks-type of upgrade or a drone-station upgrade. There is some kind of tutorial/testing mode that allows you to get a hang of the different factions, that way you can decide what style fits you most.
At the moment there is no campaign mode or multiplayer-mode but upon finishing the game, the developers promise a story driven campaign mode with 13 missions in which you will follow a human explorer through his journey and discovery of a dark world. There will be a multiplayer for 2-4 players with ranked and unranked modes, and additional levels and units for every faction.
Conclusion
Nightside is already available for purchase, since the game is still in early access, you might come across some bugs. There are still some problems when selecting and transporting groups of units, the sounds are not always present and there is still a lot to add to the game and a lot of tweaking to be done. And although these bugs are present, the core-game itself is already very enjoyable and holds a lot of potential. The graphics are amazing and the release of the campaign-mode and multiplayer-mode can’t be here soon enough.
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