Nova Bacon is an arcade styled Windows Phone game where you are in charge of supplying the pork products (a.k.a. pigs) for an outer space fly-thru restaurant. You'll snatch up wayward pigs as they roam the earth and protect them from attempts by humans to save them from slaughter as you haul them to your restaurant in outer space.
Available for low-memory devices, Nova Bacon is another Microsoft Garage (opens in new tab) project and isn't a terrible game to pass the time with. It could use a little fine-tuning as game play does feel a little drawn out.
Nova Bacon's main menu is minimal with options to jump into game play, view the developer's credits and access the game's settings. Settings are your typical sound, music and vibration options.
When you first jump into game play Nova Bacon will walk you through a tutorial that covers the basics of game play. Space creatures will pull up to the drive-thru window of your restaurant and place an order that always contains bacon or some pork product. You may have to abscond with one pig or more to complete the order depending on what is ordered.
You find the pigs innocently grazing in a large pasture and you have to snatch them up with a giant claw. Once snared in the claw, you have to quickly tap the screen to secure the claw and begin lifting them to your space restaurant. Pigs do come in a variety of sizes and values. The higher valued pigs are more difficult to snare and attempts to free them are more aggressive. I found it helpful to tap the screen with two fingers when snaring the higher valued pigs. One finger doing the tapping just never seemed fast enough.
At some point, farmers in tractors and what appears to be angry witches on brooms will attack your claw in an effort to free the pig. You are armed with a cannon that shoots meteors, lightning bolts and cosmic voids at these pesky farmers and defend your catch.
Once safely at the restaurant, your pig is processed, the meal prepared and your customer leaves happy after paying for the meal. You will earn credits with each pig that can in turn be used to upgrade your claw, cannon and arsenal of ammunition. You can also use the credits to play a survival mode of the game where you see how long you can protect your pig from an onslaught of farmers.
Overall Impression
Nova Bacon has potential with nice graphics and challenging game play. The pace of the game does pick up as you attempt to catch the more valuable pigs and you'll need to use your full arsenal of weapon types to fend off the farmers.
What slows down game play with Nova Bacon is the transition scenes. You have one animated scene showing the pig being raised up through the clouds and then another showing the pig being pulled into the restaurant. Both are nice touches but when you have to capture multiple pigs to satisfy an alien's order, it can drag out game play. If the transition scenes could be minimized when you have to snatch up more than one pig it would help game flow a good bit. As is, it can feel like an eternity to catch three pigs.
Overall, Nova Bacon is a fun game to pass the time with but just keep in mind game play may take a little longer than expected. The game is currently rated at 3 Stars in the Windows Phone Store and with a little polish, I can see the game's rating go a little higher.
