Nuclear Time, by MallocWare, $14.50
Reviewed September 2002

Every RPG fan knows that RPG games for handhelds are not very common and a good one is hard to come by. Nuclear Time, developed by MallocWare in Germany, is an interactive text-based RPG game that’s very addictive thanks to its creative story line, tight game play design and polished presentation.

An alternate future

The intriguing synopsis is one of the main attractions of Nuclear Time. In the year 2051 AD the world was dangerously overcrowded. Hunger, disease and misery gripped the planet. A coalition of poor nations mounted military strikes against the world’s economic super-powers in desperation to save their people. The war soon turned ugly with nuclear weapons involved. In a few days our once blue planet was transformed into a wasteland, contaminated by radioactivity. The earth as it had been for eons no longer existed. The game starts 50 years after this deadly war, when the level of radioactivity has dropped and people have begun to build new settlements with the technologies they re-discovered before the big war. However there is no central government, and anarchy reigns.

The few animals and people who survived the radiation have been horribly mutated. They are banned from a place almost mythical called Eden where the land is still green, plants still grow, water still clear and people still living in relative comfort. Eden is controlled by a militant organization known as Justice. They are rebuilding the world under their strict rules and they have begun their extermination of mutants. You are one of the mutants roaming mainly in the wasteland camps until one day a stranger came with NavCom, a rare piece of pre-Nuclear Time technology and urged you to seek out Taskar in the a place called Lost Hope. With NavCom in hand, you set out to find this Taskar person as if you know this was your destiny.

This chilling story of an alternate future gives the game engaging jump start and makes you want to find out what’s going to happen next. The game play developed tightly around the story with the main character equipped with major RPG attributes and skills.

The world of wasteland

The world map of Nuclear Time contains 11 camps and cities. Your character will travel between these cities to complete quests and missions. There are two modes of game play in Nuclear Time: Mission mode and Action mode. To play Mission mode, you will need to complete two lines of quests, one following the Taskar lead and free the mutants, and another one you pick up as you travel around the wasteland. You can only pick up the second set of quests in Action mode where fighting the Justice is your main goal and only way to crank up your score.

Your character has all the attributes of an RPG character except using magic. You gain experience points and upgrades through fighting either the Justice troops or other fighters in the arenas, as well as mutant monsters in the wasteland. You can pick up items in your travel or after a kill, and earn credits, which are used to trade for weapon and armor upgrades. You will need to put a lot of mileages in and ton of kills to gain 100% of your Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Mobility, Haggle/Steal ability and various fighting skills. While your travels usually are paid off by completing quests, earning credits and getting steps further into the mutant liberation mission, you do however get radiation in the wasteland, adding an interesting dynamic to the game.

There are different establishments in each camp or city you go through, bars, trading warehouses, arenas, ruins, sometimes even a healer or an oracle. In the wastelands these camps settled in however are full of danger, mutant monsters, Justice Troopers/Elites and mutated desert guardians. Of course, you will have large selection of weapons anything from a cleaver to a Bazooka with ability to upgrade with credits. While it’s fun hacking up the monsters and see your experience points grow, the fighting experience gets a little receptivity as the game goes on. I give it 50-hour game play only because you need to run around the camps to do small chores and kill ton of spiders and snakes to gain enough experience points to take on serious quests.

No graphics no problem

In the world of razor sharp graphics at high frame rate, I was surprised how addicted I became to this text-based game. One of the reasons is the game has very interesting and intuitive interface that captures your eye and extents that to long-term attention. There are several game screens with creative and sharp still graphics. The main game screen displays the status of your character in real time such as your hunger/thirst level, radiation level, experience points, credits and shortcut buttons to world map, item carrying, quest logs and quest list. There is a small picture screen shows the scenic graphics of the place you are in with shortcut buttons to a binocular, a radiation counter and a metal detector. The bottom portion of your screen shows real time feedback on anything happens around you. The fighting screen shows your opponents, damage that both you and your enemies have caused, and you will have access to items that recover your health during the battle. You will find yourself looking forward to a fight just to find out what these monsters look like.

The selection of sound effects are among the best which helps turn this game into a cool thriller. From animal shrieking sound to the grunts when you get hit, almost every action in the game is accompanied by some interesting sound effects. The game comes in both English and German, supports ARM, MIPS and SH3. It requires 3.3 MB memory.