Project Nimbus Preview

Playing Project Nimbus is an experience designed for a specific type of gamer. If making it were a recipe, it would say “Take a pinch of Armoured Core, add a dollop of Ace Combat, season with Gundam and mix well.”

Set in the far-flung future, when mankind has had to take to the skies following global flooding, you take control of a fleet of battle-mechs designed to stop terrorist cells and evil corporations from threatening peace.

This is a game is a love song to fans of mecha. It drips from every pore the tropes that fans of giant fighting robots have come to love. In concept the game reminded me heavily of MechWarrior and Gundam Wing, although in execution it lacked something those two giants had.

Built on the Unreal Development Kit, the game’s mission introductions and setting are exemplary. Holograms and info-displays hover across the screen and do a great job of immersing you into the mindset of a mech pilot. The voice work and subtitles were unfortunately riddled with mistakes and errors, and at times the sound levels were poorly mixed, meaning music would often drown out the voice actors.

Once you’re thrown into combat, a lot of those niggles disappear. Set in the skies above a flooded Earth, enemies will flood your screen before you really have time to gauge your position. Combat is frantic and fast-paced, requiring some rapid hand-eye coordination to ensure you’re taking down enemies while avoiding being hit. As you advance through the game’s (lamentably short) campaign mode your mech’s arsenal is upgraded substantially, enabling you to truly wreak havoc in the skies.

The audio is your usual electronically-fuelled heart-pumping affair with a few bombastic notes thrown in for good measure. Occasionally your fellow pilots will chime in to congratulate or warn you but expect not to hear that above the rattling of guns and the exploding of missiles.

Being Early Access, and due to the high-speed nature of the game, there are some teething problems. Often there are so many enemies (and sometimes so far away) that it’s impossible to tell if your hits have landed or not. Collisions with the surrounding level (when fighting in cities and hangers) are often unavoidable as you strafe around avoiding enemy missiles.

The game also features one of hardest boss battles I have ever fought (and I’ve completed Dark Souls). What starts as a simple “fire everything” mission ends in punishing defeat if you can’t avoid just a few of its attacks.

Project Nimbus can be forgiven its quintessential Early Access flaws – most of which disappear from your conscious when you’re frantically flying through hails of gunfire and missiles. What it does offer is a high-speed romp filled with instant action and frenetic gameplay that fans of mech-based games will love. With the developers updating it consistently, and the right optimisation, it could yet turn into a real gem.