Nanosaur

"Moderately Entertaining Once or Twice"

In the year 2006 I acquired my own personal iBook G4 which game with the game Nanosaur 2. Its was pretty good and visually impressive (for a non-console game), so I off and on wondered about the original. Finally, one day I was bored with all my games, so I searched for it and downloaded it to try it out. My ending impression was Nanosaur is one of those rare series in which the sequel far outclasses the original.

To start, lets go with the plot-hole filled story that has to be read in the out-of-game instructions. Humans resurrect dino...errr sorry...nanosaurs. A plague kills off all humans. Nanosaurs build their own society. Then for reasons not clearly stated in this game (in Nanosaur 2 its states inbreeding and a need for genetic variety and blah blah blah) a lone Nanosaur is sent back in time to collect dino eggs, but only has twenty minutes before the meteor kills them all. Typical plot-hole filled arcade style story.

Alright, now lets start with the most important aspect: gameplay. You have twenty minutes to go through one largish level and find five different eggs. There are several of each kind, but you only need one of each. You start off with a blaster and can pick up other weapons. The blaster is just a basic laser beam type weapon. It has a tri-shot style counterpart. Then there are homing missiles and a sonic screech that is highly powerful but short ranged. Then nukes which make huge explosions, kills-lotta-stuff and hurts the player if he is too close (which isn't close at all). You also get a jetpack, though its practical uses are fairly limited, though its still fun. Finally the character is capable of performing a double jump. Several dinosaurs will try to kill you as well, of course.

The interface isn't bad, though the jetpack meter could be easier to understand. The controls are customizable, so thats not an issue. Movement in narrow areas is a bit difficult and the character will slide down hills if you stand still. Fighting multiple and flying enemies is a bit frustrating and will tempt you to go kamikaze with a nuke. Enemies follow specific attack patterns and are highly predictable once you have them figured out. T-Rexs attempt to stomp on you, Triceretops try to ram you, etc.

The level design is misleading. Its longish, yes, and looks like its free-roam initially, but its actually quite linear. Very disappointing. The environments are varied, however, and each one requires a somewhat different approach to navigate safely, so its not like wandering in a featureless green field.

Sound is...bad. I was really surprised to see how poor the sound was with how great it was in Nanosaur 2. Different sound developers I suppose. Anyways, dinosaurs make growling noises that sound like a broken car, rockets sound like sandpaper, lasers sound like Pong, and ambient sound is highly lacking. The music is also really poor. Not bad enough to make you want to turn it off, but nowhere near good enough to make you want to try to extract it for listening.

The graphics were likely impressive at the time, given this was the N64 era, being 1997 on release. Everything seems to be entirely in 3D and its easy to tell what everything is. The draw distance is shorter than Super Mario 64, but good enough. The game suffers most with number of objects on screen. Start shooting a weapon fast enough and you're shots will become invisible. They're still there, but it makes aiming tough. At least enemies don't vanish. A few nice effects are also available, such as dust from walking in dirt and turning the draw distance into fog to make it more believable. But if you're looking for high quality graphics to compare with this age and day, look elsewhere. Otherwise, they're quite good for the era, but they could still be better, especially with the weapon shot graphics. Those are just pointy cylinders or transparent spheres.

The replayability is poor. The game is quite linear and once you figure it out it'll be easy to set a perfect path. The game does having scoring but...yea, who competes for scores anymore? If you do, thats replay incentive. Its best replay lays in the 'Extreme' version which has tons more ammo and double that amount in enemies. The Extreme version has a higher draw distance and five times as many enemies, which means you'll have five times as many invisible shots. Good for another run or two, but thats it.

Overall, try it if you like, but don't expect to be impressed. The game is shareware, but its also not crippleware, at least so far as I've seen, so you can play it all you want without paying. Personally, the game is far too short and shallow for the $15 they're asking for it. Though if you're looking for a Nanosaur game, try Nanosaur 2. Its far cry superior to this game, though GameFAQs still lacks a section for it. Maybe I ought try submitting the data again so I can review it...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/08/06