Home of the Underdogs
About News FAQs Contact HOTU GoogleGroup Music Manuals
Category Applications Action Adventure Education Interactive Fiction Puzzle Role Playing Games Simulation Special Sport Strategy War




Support the EFF
Welcome How you can help
Browse Games
Welcome Random Pick
Welcome By Company
  Welcome By Theme  
Welcome By Alphabet
Welcome By Year
Welcome Title Search
Welcome Company Search
Welcome Designer Search
Recommended
Welcome Freeware Titles
Welcome Collections
Welcome Discord
Welcome Twitter
Welcome Facebook
Welcome File Format Guide
Welcome Help: Non PC Games
Welcome Help: Win Games
Welcome Help: DOS Games
Welcome Recommended Links
Site History Site History
Legacy Legacy
Link to Us Link to Us
Credits Thanks & Credits
Abandonware Ring

Abandoned Places

dungeoncrawlers.org

Creative Commons License


Game #4584
Hall of Belated Fame Inductee  Notrium    View all Top Dogs in this genre
Action   Hybrid

Rating: 8.89 (58 votes)

Notrium box cover

Notrium screenshot
Notrium is yet another excellent release from Ville Mönkkönen, Finnish programmer best known for The Forge and Bikez II, as well as several other superb freeware gems. In his own words: "Notrium is a realtime single player survival game. You have crashed on a strange planet filled with aliens, and your job is to get home alive. You find alien items on the planet surface which you can combine with others to make all sorts of useful gadgets and weapons. The game can be completed in several different ways, and has a high replay value. Ever read Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe? Notrium is the same, but far in the future, and on an alien planet. You need to keep yourself fed and in good health, while at the same time the aliens are after you. Want to kill them? Build a gun and blast them into smithereens! It's easy to see the aliens during the day, but what will you do when the night comes? Will you stay near a fire to keep warm, or will you wander the jungles equipped with a flashlight desperately looking for resources? Maybe you can some day create a stronghold in the jungle, and build a turret to fend off the alien incursion."

The game is essentially somewhere in between the simplistic shoot-everything-in-sight mayhem of military shooters (e.g. Chaos Engine), and the realistic-to-a-fault gameplay of Deus. You will have to constantly fend off aliens and other hostile creatures, but you also must deal with real-life concerns such as hunger, thirst, and warmth. In finding ways to deal with these dangers, you will solve rudimentary "puzzles" that adventure fans will have no trouble with (mostly because the solutions are almost always obvious).

Although Notrium is a bit too short (I finished the game in about three hours), there are several reasons you would want a replay. First, there are multiple difficulty levels, which mostly affect the number of aliens you will encounter. Then there are several different ways of solving puzzles or getting through tight spots, as well as large areas you may not have explored thoroughly the first time. Lastly, there are three species for you to control: human, alien and android, each with concerns specific to that species (for instance, an android wouldn't have to worry about food so much). All in all, Notrium provides at least a few hours of enjoyment to action fans who want something more than brainless gorefests – and may even give you enough reason to replay once in a while. Two thumbs up! Note: The game has received a Steam-bound "Special Surprise Edition" in 2015. Link below.

Reviewed by: Underdogs
Designer: Ville Mönkkönen
Developer: Freeware
Publisher: Freeware
Year: 2003
Software Copyright: Ville Mönkkönen
Theme: Grand Adventure
Multiplayer:  
None that we know of
System Requirements: Windows XP
Where to get it:
Related Links: Author's site
Links:    
If you like this game, try: Deus, Schiffbruch, Wazzal

© 1998 - 2024 Home of the Underdogs
Portions are copyrighted by their respective owners. All rights reserved. Please read our privacy policy.