Notrium, unlike many games of its kind, actually has a backstory. One of the last surviving humans, you set out to make your fortune among the stars. On a routine exploratory mission, you come across Notrium, which is emitting radio signals. Shortly thereafter, your ship is shot down by missiles, forcing you to eject and crash land. Now you have to survive and hopefully find a way off Notrium without losing your life to the elements of hostile life of the planet. Easier said than done. The backstory ties into the game Wazzal, which is a game for another Freeware Friday.

The visuals and audio for Notrium are rudimentary, but effective. The sprites can be confusing, as they do not usually have clear, distinctive coloring or shapes, but most things are recognizable at a glace. Likewise, you certainly won't bleed out the eyes by playing this game, like you might with some other freeware games. The sound is extremely rough, with rather bad title music and harshly-mixed sound effects. However, the backdrop of footsteps and other environmental effects lends greatly to the atmosphere. There's nothing quite like huddling against a fire to keep yourself warm, listening to the rustle of underbrush to indicate that you are about to be attacked.

Notrium's gameplay revolves around surviving in an alien world, far from the comforts you might know outside. This focus on survival keeps the game tense and hard-hitting, as you must be observant to live to see your next dawn. In the world of Notrium, only four things matter: health, hunger, heat, and battery (sorry, broke the alliteration train!). Health is your traditional hit points. Hunger is your "fatigue". If it gets too low, you take continual health damage. Same goes for heat, with the addition that too much heat will cause heat stroke. Finally, energy is used to power things like flashlights and laser pistols.

Along with these four bars, you have to manage an inventory as well. It's an encumberance-based inventory, which means that if it's not too heavy, you can still carry it. Each race has a specific weight cap, with the physical expectations playing the biggest role. Likewise, you can equip items to your character, such as armor or scanners. Thankfully, usable weapons can be scrolled through simply by using the mouse wheel, removing the necessity to flip back and forth from the inventory screen every time you want to change your equipment.

The most important part of inventory is the abiloity to use, drop, or customize items. Using an item is as simple as clicking on it and pressing the U key. Items that are used depend on their state and where you are. For example, using a brown alien corpse next to a fire turns it into alien meat, which is a consumable. Second is dropping, which is as simple as pressing D with an item selected. Some things, such as food replicators, have to be on the ground to be used, as they require you to use certain items in their proximity. Finally, and most importantly, you can combine certain items into new, more useful items. For example, you can combine a Long Metal Rod, Broken Subspace Radio, and Computer Chip to make an item that automatically finds items nearby for you. Handy!

Perhaps the most essential choice for any player is the race. There are four possible races in Notrium, and each corresponds to a completely different playstyle. They are the human, android, alien, and psionic. The human can use all items, but is average in all other respects, and is susceptible to climate changes without environmental suits. The android can use most items that the human can, but instead of having a hunger bar, it is merged into his energy, making management of energy that much more important. He can also carry more. The alien can't really use any but the more rudimentary items, but makes up for it with lightning-quick speed and a devastating claw attack as well as the ability to evolve. Finally, the psionic is too weak to lift any items, but wields incredibly powerful psionic powers and uses food at a much slower rate. Each race is unique, and one finish with a certain race definitely doesn't equal a finish with another.

One of the most excellent aspects of Notrium is the vast customization available to the player. I don't mean the interface, or even in-game inventions, but rather mods. Notrium has a built-in mod switcher and viewer, and the site even links a bunch of well-established and received mods, some of which even tie into the backstory. The scripting is also extremely easy, if you feel like modding the game yourself!

Notrium's only big downside is that the default gameworld seems a little small. Sure, the items are placed randomly and the maps are large, but the environment is always the same for each map and lacks a sense of progress. It would've been nice to see at least some variation between sessions, or roughly-defined areas that could be interpreted in different segments (such as a forest that has sections for crashed ships and damage flora). As mentioned before, the graphics are a little muddy, and the interface is also pretty bad. This doesn't really pull away from the excellent survival gameplay, however.

Notrium is an older, but still great freeware game. With the last released version having hit the internet in 2005, it may seem like a fossil to use living a whopping four years in the future. However, ignoring Notrium is ignoring some of the best sandbox gameplay available. Thanks to low system requirements, Notrium can be enjoyed by just about anybody. You can download Notrium from the developer's website. Runs natively in 32-bit versions of Windows, and apparently runs well on Linux's WineX.

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