23 reviews: A New Zero

Name: A New Zero
Author: Cryptic Sea (Alex Austin)
Version: 0.71
Platform: Windows
Price: Free!
Players: 1-16
Website: A New Zero homepage
Video: Official trailer

A New Zero is Cryptic Sea's “bomb the other base” game. You play on either the gold “Condor” team, or the blue/grey “Eagle” team. You choose from 3 vehicles; a jet, a missile boat, and a gunboat. The objective is to destroy the other team’s base before they destroy yours.
The gameplay, controls, and concept is simple enough for a beginner to get the hang of, but the content, LAN play, and strategy keeps the game new and fun for hundreds of hours. Each team has a spawn base, and 5 destructible buildings; two towers (right now, only used to protect the capital), two factories (which generate money at a certain rate, needed to buy/spawn more vehicles) and a capital (also generates money, and if destroyed the other team wins the game), as well as some destructible turrets to guard each structure. Each building (besides the base, which is invincible, and the two towers) has a green core, which if hit (with either a bomb or a missile) will explode and destroy the whole structure with a huge explosion. Each vehicle is designed with a cube on the top which represents the player/camera. While in first person view the camera will be shown from there, but a third person view is also available for a wider view. The camera does act as a tangible object, so if it is hit (and struck from your vehicle) not only does your vehicle get destroyed in a small explosion, but your camera flies off, taking the first and third person view with it, while your vehicle just keeps on moving in the same direction with none of your control.
The games’ design is a very simple and sleek geometric/cubic design, with destructible environments (all structures, beside the base, are destructible, including wings and tail fins of the planes), the colors stay in a kind of golden/yellow sepia feel, which the haunting and unnatural music accents nicely. Not only is the game beautiful but it also has a very nice physics engine. This game does have very nice graphics, so a higher end machine is suggested to fully enjoy it, although the download itself is slightly under 1mb.
A New Zero is still in beta, so it lacks any form of true online play (other than LAN), campaign, and only has 3 vehicles, also the settings (such as full screen on) don't save over game plays, and it crashes my other computer, but it already is a very fun game, and I highly anticipate the final release and hopefully they will add online play. I expect that the final product will be even more polished and enjoyable then it is now, especially looking at Cryptic Sea’s other works, including Gish, blast miner and Golf?, which are all very fun games and very well polished, but those are games for later reviews and, hopefully, maybe an interview. I’ll be sure to post an update next time a version is available, meanwhile, enjoy!