Nitro Family

The Good
Nitro Family in a nutshell is basically a Serious Sam clone which was released as part of THQ’s ValuSoft range.

While it doesn’t stray to far from what you would come to expect, it does try some new & different things, though it’s kind of a hit & miss affair - while some ideas work, others kinda just don’t.

The storyline goes something like this - a new designer drug being released into the world called ‘Healthy Family’. The drug is made by an evil corporation known as ‘Golden-Bell’, headed by a mob boss named Louie. The drug turns people into evil subordinates of Golden Bell, and mutation is also a nasty side effect. You take on the role of Victor, a tough no-nonsense kind of guy who is handy with big guns, and his spouse rides on a chair which is mounted to his back & she is rather handy with a bullwhip, and . . . are you still following me? OK. Right then. The basic crux is Victor & Maria’s son - ‘Red-Chief’, is kidnapped by the sinister Louie, and it’s up to the hubby and wife team to rescue their son, and save the entire world from being totally hooked on Health Family. Okay, so the story is kinda goofy, but then again this is a goofy kinda game.

From the outset, I must admit I was a little confounded by the somewhat ‘unique’ control system presented. In this game, you have three primary weapons - A Shotgun, machine gun and rocket launchers. What is new here is that the player wields two weapons at once, with any combination of the three guns. How this mechanic works - you cycle among the weapons for the right & left arm by using the ‘Q’ and ‘E’ keys, and also can reload them using the ‘Z’ and ‘X’ keys. It feels a little unusual at first, and took me around fifteen minutes just to get to grips with it fully, and perhaps a half hour before I was really comfortable with it. Once I got to grips with it, I found the game to be quite fun and enjoyable.

So, the basic lay of it has you forging a trail of destruction across different parts of the globe in search of Red-Chief. Blasting away at the legions of Happy Family addicts from mutant tramps, evil clowns through to hulking lumberjacks and business dudes in three-piece suits. The mix is kind of wierd and oddball, but I liked it. Shoot, shoot, and more shooting is the order of the day here. Where the dual wielding weapons really come into there own, is in the form of combos. By shooting with two weapons at once, you can string together combination hits in order to earn money. For example, by using two shotguns at once, you can keep the meanies airborne & going skyward by blasting them in a controlled sequence of shots. The longer you keep the combo going, the more money you earn.

Bonuses can also be reaped for ‘Overkill’ carnage by using highly explosive weapons. Maria also contributes to the carnage by decapitating near by enemies with her bullwhip, which this move is aptly labeled the ‘Turtleneck’. It can be really fun if you manage to find some sweet spot to hide where the baddies can't quite reach, and they flock to you for some ridiculously massive whip-crack combos. When you rack up the body count, it fills your 'ecstasy mode' meter, when it gets to a certain level it basically grants you the obligatory slo-mo ability for a short period to give you that extra edge for blowing the masses into oblivion.

There is the occasional puzzle thrown in here and there, while never overly taxing on the brain, nevertheless involves launching Maria using nitrogen gas canisters to open up new areas. She can also perform a smart-bomb like attack by bombarding an area with, um bombs, all at the press of a key. Nice.

You have to build up your cash in order to buy upgrades, and to acquire new weapons. This brings me to a lady called Lisa, whom pops up from time to time at different points along the journey to offer you a chance to buy such fresh gear. As far as upgrades are concerned, each of the primary weapons can be ‘enhanced’ twice, resulting in basically bigger round capacity for your guns - which essentially equates into longer combos. Additional weapons range from a proximity mine launcher to a Nuclear bomb dispenser. Lisa can give you info about weapons, the coming terrain, characters you may encounter etc., etc.

There is of course the usual assortment of Boss battles, which can seem tough at first, but there is usually always some kind of exploit to take advantage of. Interestingly, there are even some vehicular diversions thrown into the mix in the form of ‘on-rails’ sections including shooting mounted guns on speed boats & helicopters while Maria steers, which is kinda’ cool and adds some variey to the standard play. The environments are reasonably well varied from level to level, with set-pieces like an Oriental Temple, A science laboratory, industrial expanses, and even an aircraft carrier. The level of detail put into the maps are quite good, so you always get something new and different to look at from one stage to the next so it keeps things fresh.

Overall in terms of visuals, I think DelphiEye did some cool things with the Serious Engine. The weapon and character models are really quite detailed, and everything comes off very clean, crisp & sharp, particularly in resolutions in excess of 1024 by 768. The game has some bright colourful scenarios, big chunky weapons, and enough suitably wacky and deranged enemies to sink several ships. The ecstasy mode visual effect looks particularly impressive, as the graphics gain a decidedly blurry soft-shaded tint about them which looks really cool.

When it comes to audio, this has a good range of meaty explosions, and the guns are nice and loud. The speech samples you sometimes here from the nasties are often humourous, and there is the usual assortment of grunts & snarls. Music consists of some rather catchy pop songs that are cheerful enough, and meld nicely with the off-the-wall mayhem. The limited tunes do get a bit repetitive as the game goes on, but for some reason I didn't mind that much.

The Bad
Okay. This game does have some fairly fundamental issues

Firstly, you have to reload weapons (yep, this again). It hurts the pace of the action. Even though you can cycle through the guns to reload more quickly, it still feels tedious. Do you remember while playing any of Sam’s encounter’s having to restock the shotgun after firing eight shots or so? I think not. All in all, the guns aren’t all that fun or satisfying to shoot. I found myself almost exclusively leaning on the dual shotgun combination a lot. Why? It simply is the easiest way to string together combos.

How you go about collecting health & ammo is really a bit stodgy. Instead of the gear just floating about for you to snag at a whim a'la Sam or Painkiller, instead you must blow up crates & barrels to reveal these spoils. While different from the norm for a game of this type, I feel it didn’t add anything special. Part of the available arsenal lacked basic functionality - such as the ‘Push Gun’ which does what it says, you know pushes enemies backward - though kind of has dubious effectiveness when faced with lots of nasties, so what is it good for? And while a sniper gun is thrown in the mix, the game sadly gives few opportunities to actually have real cause to use it in most circumstances.

Secondly, level design is mostly what you would expect from this type of fair, though quite notably lacking freedom of exploration. Secret places are reduced to finding the illustrious golden ‘Madnum Cards’ which are easily discovered by simply looking around a bit before moving on. Aside from the ecstasy mode, no other types of special power-up features are ever given to the player.

Some of the sound samples can get really repetitious in this game. You will likely soon get sick of hearing Victor or Maria constantly saying "I'm full" or “I’m already full” when passing over ammo you don’t need.

The Bottom Line
Well, I thought that Nitro Family was kinda appealing for a budget offering. The husband-wife duo is something a little different I must say. Dual wielding guns are fun for a while, and the combo system adds a certain charm to the overall proceedings. Sadly however, the new unique weapons presented in the game mostly lack any kind of great usefulness, and moreover the stock weapons don’t have the raw ferocity you would expect - so this side of things feels a little unsatisfying and underwhelming as a consequence. Still, in spite of the shortcomings, the game in my opinion has some nice aesthetics and a large enough serving of twisted mayhem to keep you blasting away for some good hours.