Novadrome

If you like your car-based beat-'em-ups and don't fancy 20 for a second-hand copy of "Full Auto," then this is a worthwhile investment. [Feb 2007, p.102]

Whether you prefer the eight-player Live free-for-all or the strictly linear single player campaign, Novadrome delivers a spartan but reasonably attractive vehicular-combat experience with just enough bells and whistles to justify its $10 download. [Jan. 2007, p.74]

The main problem is, like most arcade games, I can’t see it lasting too long, or not long enough to justify a ten-dollar purchase. You’ll have to ask yourself, then: “Do I like racing around and crashing things?” If yes, this is probably the XBLA title for you.

Novadrome packs it all in in terms of options and modes, but fails to capture any of the charm of classic car combat titles like Twisted Metal or even its less good rip-off merchant of a friend, Vigilante 8.

There's just nothing particularly great about it. The only incentive to sink any major amount of time into it is that most of the achievements on offer require the best cars in the game to attain. But it's highly unlikely most people will be able to stay interested for even that long.

Novadrome just turns out to be a generic, vanilla action-racer with little going for it. XBLA doesn't offer too many racing games yet, so it's tempting to buy this, but even though it hardly costs anything, it's not worth the time.

This is Xbox Live Arcade at its very worst. [Issue#25, p.118]