Novadrome

The Good
Novadrome is an arena-based vehicle shooting game that borrows from such games as Twisted Metal, Mario Kart and Demolition Racer.
It has decent graphics (shiny and not very textured, but interestingly colored), passable sound effects, passable controls and some interesting stages.

I very much enjoy the rush you get when picking up the right power-ups and laying into scores of enemies with various battering rams and guns, keeping the pedal to the metal and blasting around the arena causing mass destruction.

The Bad
The fun does end fairly quickly; the procedure of circling the ring, gathering armor and weapon powerups and then turning to face and shoot opponents does grate after a bit. The explosions are nice, but not enough to keep one's attention for hours.

The unlockable cars are all pretty lame in design and in abilities, so there's not much motivation to progress through the career mode to unlock all of the available cars.

The stages at first look interesting, with their rams and jets and tunnels, but after a bit you start to recognize how few the tracks truly are in number, and shortly after that you tire of them. Not enough secrets, not enough tracks.

The computer AI is particularly predictable in Novadrome - circling the arena in a counter-clockwise manner will almost always produce positive results, no matter what track, what car you're driving and what enemies are on the stage.

The Bottom Line
In all, Novadrome is a bit of fun and decently polished. It's a decent jolt of excitement for racing, shooting and ramming at full speed. If you like Twisted Metal, Mario Kart and the like, don't get your hopes up too high - this game ISN'T as good as those by far, but it does take some parts from those games and use them somewhat well.