Omikron: The Nomad Soul

An adventure game where you play, well, you play yourself. Your soul has been pulled into another world -- Omikron, where you have to fight the demon Astaroth. In the storyline, the game is actually a device used by Astaroth to capture people's souls, and you won't have your soul back until you finish the game. The graphics are pretty stunning ... high-end 3D Polygon rendering. Within thin There are about 6 different cities to visit, each with a different feel. When you die, you don't really die, you just "jump" to the next person who touches you -- hence you are a nomad soul. You later also learn to transfer yourself to others without dying. Each person has different skills and abilities, so you may want to transfer, for instance, to make use of an academic's intelligence.

The voice acting is crappy, but the soundtrack is very good, and David Bowie features in the storyline and as a musician ... you can see a virtual performance by him in the game, and it's not just a gimmick.

An interesting adventure game, with the distinctive organic-sci fi style prevalent in many French games of the last decade. The game is extremely ambitious, with adventure, fighting and role playing elements. The designers' vision is somewhat hampered by the decision to release the game for the ailiing Playstation. If it was a PC-native game, many of its flaws could have been rectified.

It has several features that had seldom been previously seen (especially in a Playstation game). The content was refreshingly adult, the environment was a (just about) convincingly "working" city, and there is extensive and imaginative use of motion capture (most notably facial motion capture, which adds immeasurably to the experience). Also, David Bowie's contribution is not a last-minute bolt-on. The musical style and his appearances fit in well with the rest of the game content. Bizarrely, this game led to Bowie winning a BAFTA award for "best contribution to the interactive industry". But seeing as the Interactive Entertainment BAFTAs are a crock, this has little relevence on the game's actual quality. It was released in Europe as The Nomad Soul.