02 September 2003
Does P.N.03 hit the target? | |
|  | | Does Phill think the P.N.03 gameplay will be a hit or a miss with action-starved GameCubers? |
| | Phill Cooper review Capcom's attempt of breaking up the latest fantasy clique. Does P.N.03 hit the mark or does it fire blanks? |
| | | I have to say that this game represents a very bold move by Capcom indeed. In a climate where complexity and polygon counts seem to be more important than fun gameplay P.N.03 is like a breath of fresh air.
I could start by boring you with the ins and outs of the plot (such as it is) and the subtleties of the gameplay, but I’ll get to that later.
The first thing you need to now about this one is that it a shoot ‘em up pure and simple, anyone expecting revolutionary gameplay, or even an amount of variety will be very disappointed indeed. You play the role of Vanessa Z.  | | Phill thinks P.N.03 is relief for action-strapped gamers |
Schneider who has overcome the disadvantage of being German to be possibly the coolest video game character yet.
‘In the distant future…. army has given control to Computerised Armament System (CAMS)... tragedy strikes… one of the settlements is turned into a killing field after a CAMS malfunction’ blah, blah, blah.
So basically it’s you versus the machines in a fight to the death. But so far so humdrum, the thing that makes P.N.0.3 so special is that it’s not really about the shooting at all, it’s about the dancing.
You see Vanessa is not only one cool Germanic killing machine, she’s also a class one disco dancer and the secret of success in the game is getting her to dance out of the way of the CAMS incoming attacks, and then killing them up – well bad! However as much as I enjoyed the game there are several problems with it.
 | | P.N.03 - a bold move by Capcom |
The environments are bland, the gameplay is repetitive and overall it’s rather to short.
To get the best out of this game you need to play on easy first and power up your Aegis suit as Vanessa doesn’t have a gun and fires speculator attacks direct from her spine!
The better the suit the more devastating your attacks. Once you’ve completed it on easy I’d suggest you play it on easy again to make sure you get the proper Bo suit.
Then go straight to hard mode for a real challenge. Overall I really enjoyed this game, a victory of style of content? Yes indeed, but when it’s this much fun does it really matter? Answer; it may to some but not to me!
7/10
Phill Cooper
| | | |
|
|
