I've Stopped Running From Monsters and Now Make Soup: "Nom Nom Galaxy"
Shaun Cordingley
For those of you who chat with me on Twitter, you will have noticed that I had been talking a lot about Bloodborne (our Game of 2015), and with good reason, that amazing, Gothic Horror masterpiece took up large chunks of my gaming life since the beginning of the year as I had buckled down to finish it--and finish it I did. Solo-ing every boss, and being damn proud of it.
Well, not "finish it, finish it", I didn't get the magical 'third' ending as I just could not bring myself to go through the whole game again so I can SPOILER. I was basically satisfied in the ending I got (as it was my hero, Vanda's story) and just looked up the...weirdness that happened if you kept going.
This mean that it was time for me to move on to something else, and excited as I am for Far Cry Primal, I had a whole bunch (4 months) of PlayStation Plus free games piled up that I hadn't even touched yet....
I decided to give two of them a try; one of them, Helldivers because I was looking for something that was a bit like Diablo III for some couch co-op play, and I have to say, despite the fact that it is super difficult, and I'm dying a lot, it has been scratching that itch for me a bit, however, it is not the game that has captured most of my attention.
No, that would be the robotic soup factory creator Nom Nom Galaxy.
Yeah, the goal of this game (that I, admittedly, heard practically nothing about, I just downloaded because I download every free game I get, and then either play them or don't later), is to create a successful galactic soup company, harvesting ingredients and finding recipes for new soups (Like Cream of Mushgrass, which sounds just awful), to capture market share and dominate the interstellar soup market.
Here's a trailer:
As you can see, it is not the most stunning game technically, but as with all of the other PixelJunk games, it's really in the game play where Nom Nom Galaxy shines. In what essentially feels like a mashup of a sim-factory, mixed with a little bit of Lemmings (stupid wandering robots are pretty lemming like sometimes), and a little bit of a tower defense game, Nom Nom Galaxy is an addictive little Tycoon style game that just seems to work for me. I recently finished terraforming and souping up my fifth planet, and while there aren't boat-loads of excitement in the game, there is something very relaxing about working through each level to find the most optimal factory.
The sound design is great, and the light humour is a nice touch (especially after all of those hardcore, intense robot soup factory making games of 2014), but that is not to say that I cannot recognize that there are faults. The unlocking systems (technology wise) in the game make sense, but the way in which they unlock at the end of a level is moderately annoying, as it generally means that I do not have any robots who can help me run the factory, and make soup without me using my little soupnaut for most of the important pieces--ergo, the middle to the end of every level so far, for me, is an exercise in repetition: get ingredients, drop off ingredients, fight off invaders, repeat.
Now I can imagine that I might get tired of playing Nom Nom Galaxy, if there is not a development from making the last half of every level feel exactly the same, but that said I am still playing it, I am still enjoying it, and I do have to recommend it. There's just something so zen about the whole process, that it has become something of a 'wind down' game after my long days.
Give it a try if you, like me, downloaded it (or added it to your library) and aren't sure--it's a fun little game, and at 10$, is sure worth checking out, especially if any of the games I mentioned strike your fancy (or you were a big Terraria fan).
Nom Nom Galaxy is available on PS4 and Steam (Windows)
-S (@Shauncord)