N20 Nitrous Oxide

There's no doubt about it--N20 from Fox Interactive is a head-trippin', mind-blowin', psychedelic-powered shooter that will melt your eyes and rock your eardrums. Of ail the shooters you'll play this year, you won't forget N20's graphics or its awesome sound.

N20 sports some of the most neon-infused, brain-twisting graphics imaginable. You'll be awestruck by detailed explosions, creepy enemies, and twisting, churning corridors. Playing N20 is like swimming-wait a half-hour after you eat before you dive in, or you'll hurl faster than a freshman at a frat party.

What you get with N20 is a fuller, more detailed, albeit less speedy version of Tempest 2000. And although the game does quicken slightly, depending on how many bugs you fry or the type of craft you employ, it never reaches the peak speeds of Wipeout; however, with all the action on-screen, you may find too much speed is a bad thing.

But the game excels in other areas: The sound, for example, is phenomenal if you're a Crystal Method freak. That band's pounding house sound dominates N20 and fits the action like a wet T-shirt. Other bonuses indude customizable craft and a two-player single-screen mode, so you and a friend can rock the PlayStation without a reduction in screen size. In the end, N20 is definitely worth the price of admission, and is a great shooter for your library.

Get ready for the trippiest, funkiest, mind-blowin'-est shooting game since Tempest 2000. Developed by Gremlin (the creators of Loaded and TNN Hardcore 4X4, to name a few), N20 is a rip-roaring ride down multicolored corridors where you blast over 22 kinds of alien bugs through 35 techno-inspired levels of sheer fun! You have a choice of four ships and a cadre of 14 weapons, and the speed bursts when you kill enemies will rock your sensory inputs and literally stun your brain. Morphing creatures, undulating levels, and hard-driving music (Fox is in negotiations with one of the biggest techno groups around) should push N20 over edge. Far out? It's further out.

Ever miss the old arcade shooters where you do nothing but blaze through level after level, shooting every enemy in sight, vying for nothing more than the high score? Well, Gremlin has created a 3D shooter that has today's graphics with yesterday's traditional arcade action.

This action all takes place inside tunnels inhabited with more than 22 species of alien bugs. Each type of enemy has its own special formations and attacks, like scorpions who lay mines on the tunnel walls and black widows who explode into swarms of baby spiders when shot. Even the once-peaceful butterfly becomes certain death from above. You'll have a variety of weapons (more than 14) to take these bugs out, but choosing how you kill them can make for higher scores. For example, you should shoot centipedes in the head instead of the main body (sound familiar old-time gamers?). After you kill off an enemy, a coin will appear, which you can shoot up to four times to increase its value. Collect these coins and at the end of each level, you can buy shields, firewalls (an exterminating, tunnel-clearing ring of fire) and even more points.

The entire feel of N20 fits well with the 3D shooter genre. This is a very fast-moving game (60 frames per second) with very impressive, if not overly done, graphics. The crazy lighting effects, warping and morphing tunnels, and wild explosions provide such sensory overload, that ravers might feel right a home with this game. The soundtrack (to be done by a yet undisclosed techno band) will only add to the psychedelic madness. (On a side note, we asked the programmers if they did a lot of LSD while programming. They thought we were joking...)

At heart, N20's gameplay may remind many players of the famous shooter, Tempest. This isn't totally by accident. "We set out to create a game where the gameplay was simple on one level but completely absorbing and addictive on another," says Peter Dalton, Gremlin's producer on N2O. "The sort of thing that leaves the player saying, 'Just one more go' like the old arcade classics, such as Tempest." With emphasis on earning high scores and beating endless waves of oncoming enemies, N20 might have captured the formula that made Tempest such a success.