Description
The Gospel of Silicon Against Flesh

The human race is complacent. Computers take care of everything. Nothing can possibly go wrong. Until one day, the most dangerous information superhighway in history starts preaching armed revolution.

In this gut wrenching, heart stopping ride of a lifetime, pilot the Scavenger 4 space fighter between canyons, over glaciers, and through cities in a one-on-one showdown with the deadly Scarab X. This heroic, high-flying blast 'em up features dazzling 3D graphics, fully interactive white knuckle playability, amazing full motion video sequences and a shredding rave soundtrack.

Review
An FMV shooter along the lines of the Sega CD cornerstone Silpheed. Sprite based enemies and your ship are laid over constantly moving FMV footage. While this is a good idea in theory, Novastorm suffers from a horrible sense of depth perception.

Case in point; Within the first 5 seconds of game play it's possible to lose all three of your lives because you have no idea you're being shot at. The bullets shot by most enemies are in the flight path of said enemy, so you never see it coming. There's literally no room to manuever, and what's considered 'real' from the backgrounds isn't always obvious, which means you watch your health deplete rapdily with no idea why.

Even more bizarre, the game practically plays without you. If you're dying on a constant basis, you're still moving forward, which means regardless of your play style you will most likely still reach the end of the stage. Which would be great, except the later stages are so impossible that you'll never really see what Psygnosis wanted you to see.

Finally, probably the most bizarre, is that if you do make it to the later levels on Disc 2, you have to swap CDs to input your initials, and then swap CDs again if you're using the level select code.

For schmup fans and completists only.

Enclosures
The game comes with that clunky second panel that fits over the case front to house the 2nd game disc.

• This is really the Japanese released Scavenger 4, hence the ship name.
  
  
• You can type in the name TWIRLY as your High-Score name
  to unlock a stage select.
  
  
• Also released on the 3DO and Sega CD.
  
  
• There's a small glitch in the special effect image behind the military officer who gives you your debriefing in the opening. The very first message you get, you can see that the TV behind his bottom right side is playing the same footage in real time. However, each time the game cuts away to another cinematic and comes back, the TV footage restarts, even though the officer is still talking.
  
  
• Psygnosis was a 1st party developer for Sony, hence the Sony SKU and SCUS number rather than the licensee SLUS designation.
  
  
• The screen shots on the back of the box are not of the retail released game. They are either from a different version or prototype.
  
  
• There are only 18 people listed for credits.

Game loaded fine with both options turned on, and yes, it takes longer with the fast option on.

PlayStation 2 Compatibility - Smooth
     With the smooth option on the ships are only effected slightly, since everything else is a FMV. Most of the time enemy sprites aren't on the screen long enough to register.