Nova 9: The Return of Gir Draxon
Nova 9: The Return of Gir Draxon is a futuristic shooter video game developed by Dynamix and released by Sierra On-Line in 1991 for the PC as the second sequel to the game Stellar 7. Gameplay The player assumes the role of a futuristic tank pilot fighting alien threats across 9 different star systems. The tank is designated as the Raven II and is equipped with forward-facing cannon with unlimited ammo that can fire 2 shot bursts, energy shields and (unlike the tank in the previous game Stellar 7) armor. Damage to the player's tank after the shields are breached comes in the form of systems becoming less effective; this mostly effects mobility. Power-ups can be collected in this game, though the system works differently than in the previous game in the series. Here, up to 9 power-ups can be stored and used when needed. Note that damage to the player's tank can permanently break power-up slots. Finally, the player's tank can be repaired by returning to a hidden asteroid base at a designated warp portal locations throughout the game. These appear on about every other world. If the tank is not particularly damaged when going to a repair portal, the player can also receive permanent upgrades to the tank as well; note that a few upgrades are required to advance the story, so they will happen at designated points in time even if the player's tank is badly damaged. The game's enemies include anything from other tanks to mechanical birds equipped with a range of weapons including lasers, ballistic attacks, and mines. Each of the 9 worlds has a theme to it, and the enemies on that world tend to follow the theme, such as a dinosaur world or a bug world; this was an advancement over the previous game, where enemies were often reused across worlds. Each alien world also has a boss that must be defeated, most of which require some level of creativity, such as shooting the boss in a weak point or using terrain against it. The final boss is Gir Draxon himself, in a horned skull-like super-tank. He has 3 phases to defeat, the first two of which require creative tactics; this level of boss complexity was rather impressive for the time. The alien worlds were rendered as mostly featureless plains that looped around themselves eventually, though each world had a modest variety of 3D objects on it that represented rock formations or occasionally alien plant life. The worlds' backgrounds were digital paintings of alien skies that wrapped around the horizon. The game lacks a save feature. The player has effectively 2 "Continues" - basically, extra lives - and that was it before the game needed to be restarted from the beginning. Experienced players would also soon notice that damage effects to the tank could be overly crippling, reducing the fun of playing or making the game unwinnable on the current life. For example, significant damage to one side of the tank could completely