• Posted August 19th, 2008 at 22:17 EDT by Eric Blattberg
• 20 Comments

Did you buy NovaStrike only to find yourself stuck on the first or second level? Fret no longer, as the game's massive update is nearly here. We chatted with Kevin McCann of Tiki Games about what to expect from this near redesign of the game.

"I'm really hoping the update helps a lot of existing owners that are frustrated with the difficulty to enjoy the game," he said. "I've spent a *lot* of time on tuning the difficulty (particularly on RECRUIT and SOLDIER), and brought more folks through to play it, so this should be closer to the mark in being accessible from very casual to hardcore gamers (and believe me - I'm still including a challenging mode for those that want it)."

As far as Trophies go, they've been implemented into the game and will activate when the update becomes available. There are 16 Trophies - 12 bronze and four silver. Among the bronze Trophies are three with secret requirements. Be on the lookout for a full Trophy listing later this week.

The update will be submitted to Sony for approval in the very near future. In fact, it may have already been submitted in the 13 hours since I spoke with McCann. Basically, expect to see it live fairly soon.

Here's the complete list of changes that you'll see in the update:

* Difficulty - Tuned to be easier in existing modes while adding a HARDCORE mode for those that really want a challenge
* Fully Customizable Controls - A secondary control layout that has an alternate control mapping scheme will be included, but you'll also be able to customize the controls to your liking -- you can map weapon selection to face buttons and/or the digital pad, put the afterburner on a trigger, etc.
* Trophies - 16 total Trophies, 12 broze and four silver, will be added
* Player ship - The Scythe will be larger in size
* Fine Aim mode - Those having trouble lining up the Shredder and/or Trembler bomb will be able to hold a button down to slow down the Scythe's turning which this makes lining up on ground targets a lot easier
* Megapacks and repair packs - Will now replenish the capacitor bar for the afterburner
* Slight performance increase - Overall game optimized slightly

UPDATE: Just kidding, here is the complete list:

• Trophies – you’ll now be able to unlock sixteen trophies (12 bronze and 4 silver)
• Fully Customizable Controls – you can now map weapon selection for the primary and secondary weapons to different buttons and remap other control options. We’ve also added a Type 2 control scheme that is the default for new players. For for those of you that already have the game it will stay on Type 1 until you select Type 2 (or customize the controls) – this was done so that players not reading this post don’t get the update then wonder what the heck happened to the control scheme. And as a final note you’ll also be able to swap the left stick and right stick functionality (Steering and the Omni Cannon)
• XMB Music Playlist support – want to play your own rocking tunes instead of listening to NOVASTRIKE’s music? Now you’ll be able to do just that
• Multiple Saved Games – you can now have as many saved games as you want
• New Weapon Info pane – this is more for new players, but once a weapon is acquired the game pauses and displays an information pane showing the name of the weapon, how to select it, how to fire it, and a brief description of the weapon. While this feature is turned on by default you can also go to the ingame options menu and turn it off if you’re already are familiar with all the weapons and don’t want the interruption
• Replay Stage as well as Quit and Save options have been added to Stage Summary screen – now after you finish a stage you can advance to the next Stage (as you could in the original release), or you can Quit and Save (which will have you starting at the next stage when you later continue), or you can select Replay Stage to play that stage over again (if you failed some objectives and want to try again to get a higher score
• Restart Stage option has been added to ingame options menu – if you’re not liking how you’re playing on a stage you can now open the ingame options menu, select Restart Stage, then start the stage over (versus having to quit out and continue)
• Megapacks and repair packs will replenish the capacitor bar for the afterburner
• Seeking weapons will now target outer components on capital ships. For example, if you drop an electro-mine near a Heralder, it will now lash the outer hangar “wing” (versus the main body as it did in the original release). This makes stripping enemy carriers a bit easier
• Friendly Fire damage has been disabled in RECRUIT and SOLDIER (this is just part of the overall taming of RECRUIT and SOLDIER – we also limited the maximum number of active waves, and when your Scythe explodes it won’t damage friendlies in RECRUIT or SOLDIER, either); VETERAN now gives you two extra lives per stage as well – HARDCORE is, well, hardcore
• The Shredder’s auto-lock on enemy ground structures has been improved – in the original release it sometimes had difficulty locking onto very low ground structures (near sea-level) – this is no longer the case, and the Shredder is much more useful as a result
• Player ship (the Scythe) is a bit larger in size - but don’t worry, we made sure that it didn’t make the game harder (as the collision model is a bit larger as well)
• Brief invulnerability after respawning – this is only a few seconds so don’t try to use it to fight, but it will at least provide brief protection if you respawn over an enemy base
• Leaderboards now show the last completed stage to the right of the score and also show more than 1,000 scores (and HARDCORE has been added to the Leaderboards)

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