Buy NiGHTS, play online, make a garden
1UP recently had a chance to delve a little deeper into NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, in particular the game's multiplayer and "My Dream" modes.
Reportedly, the former is to consist of two gametypes, one of which -- imaginatively titled "Race Mode" -- will be fully playable online. This will see two players competing in an out-and-out race to the finish line, one as the eponymous NiGHTS, and the other as his her its arch-enemy, Reala.
Passing through yellow or green rings contributes to a meter that can in turn be used for "dash boosts," while spike rings have the opposite effect. Encouragingly, it sounds like a fairly "pure" interpretation of the original Saturn game, if our withered, dried-up memories serve correctly.
"Battle Mode" is the second multiplayer variant, an offline game for two players. Here, each player has to avoid the "Mareballoon," essentially a large orange time bomb that NiGHTS and Reala can chuck between one another. If you're the one holding the Mareballoon by the time its clock has ticked down to zero, then your opponent clinches a point, with the first to three winning.
Swoop effortlessly past the break for more.
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Meanwhile, the site also poked around in the "My Dream" section of the game, which gives the player a chance to breed A-LIFE, cuddly little fellows who can be collected from levels in the single-player mode. Once caught in the game, A-LIFE move into your garden, modifying it according to their individual statistics; apparently, each A-LIFE is rated in terms of Strength, Intelligence, Flight Ability, Sensory Perception, Sociability, Curiosity, Quickness, and Dexterity.
Further complicating matters, there are different types of A-LIFE (still with us?), Nightmarens and Nightopians, and if things get a little intimate between the two, they can create a kind of A-LIFE mongrel, known as a Mepian. These Mepians will then grow up and perhaps get jiggy with other Mepians, expanding the number of potential ways in which your garden can evolve into one big, sloppy genetic mess.
There's a bunch of other neat things you can do in this mode, such as visit the gardens of other users who are online with their Wii (there's an "Icon Chat" function to make chatting with other international users a breeze), and as we've previously reported, the game uses the Forecast Channel so that the weather in your little virtual garden matches what's happening outside your own house. Which means yours truly will be getting in-game grey skies until August 2008. Reason #3,919 to love the UK.
