Tweet
Looking back, it's a surprise that David Bowie was only involved in one game. It's somewhat less of a surprise that it was 1999's Omikron: The Nomad Soul, the game that introduced David Cage to the world, and still stands as an example of 90s gaming spirit. It's a genre-busting game with as many personalities as Bowie himself, flitting between first-person shooting, adventure, puzzling and fighting. It's bursting with ideas and birthed in a booming industry where anything suddenly seemed possible, without being weighed down by the experience to draw the line between what could be done, and what maybe shouldn't be.Much of Omikron falls into that latter category. It's mostly terrible, but also ambitious and unforgettable; an arguably harder trick to pull off. In a game full of craziness about souls jumping between universes and a weird mix of Blade Runner and off-beat European SF designs and sexuality, it's interesting that it's best remembered for Bowie's contributions: its theme, New Angels of Promise (later re-released with the name 'Omikron' replaced with 'Suspicious Minds'), and two characters - virtual entity Boz, and the lead singer of a band called The Dreamers.
Despite this being a time of eulogising, it has to be said that Boz is not one of the great game characters of all time. Bowie's performance is flat, and not helped by having to deliver some of the game's silliest concepts - notably that Omikron, the game you're playing, is actually a trap in our world to draw gamer souls to the demon Asteroth. "The game you're playing at this very moment," Boz yawns, leaving the question open about how Asteroth felt about it being rebranded as simply 'The Nomad Soul'. Must have been an interesting marketing call.
Read more…
More...