Nomad (MS-DOS)

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if this game had something to do with space.

A mysterious alien ship crashes on Earth, its origin a mystery. All navigation data onboard has been erased.

Humanity decides to do the sensible thing. They stick it back together again and throw it back into space where it came from.

But they also decided to put me inside and give me an important mission. I wasn't paying attention to that part though. But hey, they let me name the ship!

My ship goes boldly into space. And then breaks down in orbit.

Not the most impressive 3d graphics I've seen, but it's not so bad for 1993 I suppose.

Why does the space otter have an Irish sounding name? This guy seems pretty awesome, seeing as he fixed my ship up for free, so I guess I should help him out.

I don't usually offer to blow people up without hearing both sides of the story, but this Korok guy is possible threat to all humanity right now!

Missiles! Awesome. Wait, damn, did they send me into space completely unarmed? Man I'm going to kick NASA's ass when I get back home.

Oh. It's another bridge screen, like in those Star Trek games. Only with much worse graphics. I appreciate having all this screen space used for the 3D, instead of a tiny little viewscreen box, but couldn't they have done better than a grey box with a blue outline?

Still, at least there's no cryptic icons, and I don't have to go to different screens to check out different ship systems.

Okay, lets see what the buttons do. Scan... does nothing. Man, when I know more than my ship does about a planet's atmosphere, then I know I'm in real trouble.

Oh shit, yeah, enemy ship! I should probably take care of that. Uh, FIRE EVERYTHING. No wait, lock on and then fire. I'll figure out what the other buttons do later.

Excellent! The enemy is destroyed and I have three missiles left. Considering I started off with 10 missiles, by my calculations that means that if I get into another fight I am totally screwed.

I wonder if the designers ever watched 2001...

Okay, my ship is totally wrecked, but it's okay I can fix it. Well, I can fix one thing at a time by clicking it, then leaving it going while I go through the other menus.

I decide to check through my cargo. Maybe there's something here I can trade for new weapons.

Like... car keys? What? Chocolate, a watch, a twenty dollar bill... secrets of the galaxy? Those assholes back at base are probably laughing their asses off at me right now.

Hmm, company badge? I wonder what company I work for anyway.

What?

Okay, the ship's fixed. It's time to go off and explore! I know the helpful alien told me to visit that planet, but who wants to do what they're told to do anyway?

System: Unknown. Planet: Unknown. Sounds like a nice place to visit.

This system sucks. This planet sucks. My sensors may be useless but even I can tell that this planet is a shithole.

Hey, this planet looks more interesting! There's a ship in orbit, and they haven't tried to shoot me yet!

Sup Cisne 22, I'm loving your alien sounding spaceship name. Have you ever heard of the priceless and rare human delicacy known as chocolate? Only 5 bars are known to exist outside of the Sol system.

FIVE bars of chocolate for one planetary scanner? Lady, you drive a hard bargain.

And then we watch the cargo drone thing slowly do its thing. For TWO HOURS (exaggerated).

Sadly my conversation with Cisne 22 soon turned sour, as I pestered her with questions when she clearly only wanted to trade stuff. Fortunately there was another ship in orbit with an equally exotic and alien sounding name.

Cisne 308 didn't like me either.

But man, look at all this information! I have no idea what to do with any of it, but it's nice to know if I can land on a planet without my head exploding.

Actually, I'm not sure this thing can even land on planets. Which is a shame because I wouldn't mind a bit of that gold.

After exhausting all my trading possibilities by pissing off every sentient being in the solar system, I decide to take a moment to reflect on the mission so far.

But then, aliens appear! This time though I've got battle experience and two other ships around to back me up. I predict things will go very differently from last time.

Because last time I had enough missiles to kill the enemy before they blew me up. Oh well.

Hey, this looks really familiar somehow. Wait, THAT'S how big my ship was? Oh wow, they showed people next to it in the intro too. Man, that is a tiny space ship.

I look out at the barren, featureless ice world that will be my prison for the rest of my life... and suddenly I wish I hadn't traded all the chocolate away.


Next game.