Reader Reviews

P.N.03 (Product Number 03) demo disc (Cube)

by Alastair

As the mercury rose higher and higher, and South East England wilted under the hottest day ever, I went to GAME in Watford [was the crazy psycho man working in Dixon's this week? -Ed] with £1.99 clutched in my sweaty paw. My plan was to get my hands on the playable demo of P.N.03, despite not really knowing that much about it.

It has a 60Hz option, which should please some of you, and you get a choice of three different Aegis suits, all with differing properties and special moves. I chose the default and was taken into a conversation between Vanessa Z. Schneider and an unknown client. He explains the Energy Drive (special moves) and suggests pressing start if you wish to learn more. I pressed start and the game started, thus missing the rest of the conversation. Doh!

After practicing all my special moves in the first room, which is enemy free, and wasting all my energy, I ran up to the first door and pressed A to open. The display told me I cleared room 1 of 15 and that it had had no enemies. I slowly progressed through other rooms blasting at various robots and not really knowing what I was doing. A check of the 'Mission' option from the pause menu told me to clear all rooms and proceed to the exit portal (or something). Eventually I'd been through all the rooms and back to the beginning without seeming to find any portal...

'Ah, perhaps it was that glowing sphere thing', I thought. And heading to said sphere (and pressing A) ended the level and gave me my stats. 'Amateur' made me feel like something of a lamer, but did spur me to try again.

And it was this point that changed my mind about PN03. At first I wasn't too sure as it just felt a bit aimless with no map to tell you where to go and nothing much telling you what to do. I'm claiming that the heat was making me slow on the uptake!

This morning I gave it another go and made much better progress. The different suits give you a different layout of rooms to work your way through and each one gets slightly harder - adding nicely to the variety. By the end of my third run through I was getting some six-point combos and clearing rooms without taking damage. I was also getting the hang of hiding from enemy fire and scampering out to blast the rogue robots to bits. This improvement was rewarded with the rating 'Destroyer' which made me feel less of a lamer!