I for one never really got into the survival game genre. Most of the good ones were hard to find much less play (hey, I was about eight at the time) and there were so few of them... Now of course, with the supposed smashing success of Lost in Blue on the DS (a game which didn't really impress me for all it's charms,) it's apparently cool to be trapped in a Gary Paulsen novel.

Anyway, for what it's worth, Notrium is a fairly entertaining if difficult game. And it's currently freeware at the time of writing, can't go too wrong eh? So let's go off by the numbers.

Gameplay: To be fair, the actual difficulty depends on which one of four races you picked and what difficulty you set it on. Easy difficulty means you don't have to worry about temperature, food and energy bars deplete slowly, and crap is a little less aggressive. Medium is normal, and on Hard the AI gets a bit more challenging.
As mentioned before, the player can chose between one of four potential survivors. Each has their own quirks, the Human is fairly balanced but relies heavily on equipment and item fabrication while the Alien (a pretty much run of the mill xenomorph) can't use many items but evolves several powers over the course of the game (not to mention being a unholy beast in melee.)
One interesting quirk is that items and gear are not found, they are assembled from various bits of junk labeled with the required technobabble. Meaning the player needs to use his head and some critical thinking skills seeing as sometimes it isn't entirely clear what you need to do to make say... a gun. Fortunately, B lets you dissassemble items into their base components so if you end up with a item that isn't entirely useful to you, take it apart.
Despite the intended (making sure your character is fed and not dead) and unintended difficulty (from the item generation system,) the gameplay manages to be fairly balanced although I question the fairness/realism of the characters metabolisms, resistance to extreme temperatures, and how often hazardous conditions crop up.

Graphics: For an old 2d space, this is pretty good. Levels are thought out, the animations are convincing if a bit primative, and the weather animations get your attention. However, it relies on the old text-based method of description which while not bad should be a clear sign of what you're getting.

Replay Value: You have four radically different races, the zone arrangement is fairly randomized, and the game has a complete set of mod tools (which some enterprising players have already taken advantage of.) Replay value is pretty much only limited by how long you want this game to be on your hard drive.

Fun Factor: While difficult, it is easy to loose track of time while playing this. The game has a certain addictive quality to it yet it's not a complete blast. Perfect for when you want to kill an hour or two.

Reviewer's hints: Notrium is a fairly tough game, even after you manage to pick up on things. Hopefully the following will help:

Starting game bonus: If you manage to get your escape pod to the planet without crashing into a single missile, you get a nice bonus dependent on which race you are. However, regardless of which race, it's usually a fairly nice present.
Getting the gun: Primarily an interest to human and android players, the "recipe" for the first firearm you'll get is pistol chassis + particle accelerator + fuel cell converter + fuel cells. Combine the fuel cells and the converter to get a energy cell, use the energy cell to power the accelerator, finally combine the accelerator with the pistol chassis. Congrats, you now have the first real weapon in the game. And I bet it took you a fraction of the time it took me.

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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