Nanostray Review - DS

7

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 8
Audio: 5
Multiplayer: 3
Innovation: 4

Introduction

Nanostray goes a long way to fleshing out the DS's library. An old school twitch shooter from the team that brought the Iridion series to the GBA, Nanostray tries admirably to add something new to the mix, although success remains just out of its reach.

If you're looking for a good story, you're in the wrong place.

There isn't one.

I'm not saying that to be funny, I'm being dead serious. Nowhere in the manual does it state why exactly you're fighting a seemingly endless armada of space nasties and the website offers only a single paragraph worth of explanation.

<quote> Slowly awakening from a blast to the side of your ship, your memory is jumbled and you can't remember what just happened or what you're doing in this sector. Instinctively, you check your console; a destination is still plugged in. You must take action; the enemy is starting to swarm. </quote>

With that out of the way, let's get to the meat of that matter.

Gameplay

The controls are tight, with the ship feeling fast but not too twitchy. It can be a little hard to judge distance when flying at the top of the screen, given the 3D nature of the display, which causes a few unnecessary deaths.

Nanostray offers four distinct weapons which you can select from on the fly. There's the straight up forward firing cannon with it's super laser; the twin homing lasers and their burst fire, the side shot and it's powered up alternative and the lock on lightening bolt, complete with its life saving shield. There are also the standard screen clearing super-bombs for those special occasions, activated via the X button.

The touch screen functions as your HUD; it displays your remaining shield strength (if any) your current secondary weapon ammo and your number of lives and super bombs. The touch screen is also used for weapon selection and is the only way to swap between weapons, which is an odd move considering that there are unused face buttons just waiting for something to do.

Using the touch screen as a Heads Up Display clears the top screen for pure action but looking to the bottom screen to check your status can lead to some unfortunate accidents. The option to display it on the top screen would have been nice, as would the option to remap the buttons, perhaps putting a weapon select button on the L trigger instead of doubling it up as normal weapon fire.

Nanostray's scoring system is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, you can play through the game and blast everything to pieces, never letting up on the firing ... (continued next page)