Squid Yes, Not So Octopus Review

Written by: Adam Tewkesbury Posted: 27th November 2009

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Squid Yes, Not So Octopus Details:

Goto Squid Yes, Not So Octopus Game Page

	Arcade
	Xbox 360
	Bagfull Of Wrong
	Bagfull Of Wrong

TBC

Out Now

To the inevitable disappointment of cephalopod fans, Squid Yes, Not So Octopus (SYNSO to its friends) has little to do with aquatic wildlife. What it does offer is some fairly forgettable arena shooting in a typically psychedelic 2D environment, at a price that could just make it attractive despite its shortcomings.

The price is a good starting point - 80 MS Points, equating to about the same as a king size Twix. This is very cleverly positioned to use up the scraps inevitably left after a more substantial online purchase, and infinitely more entertaining than a new hat for your avatar or a half-arsed desktop theme.

The game itself is fine, as far as it goes. Very much in the Geometry Wars mould, the sole aim is to survive increasingly numerous waves of glowing enemies within a static screen by wildly spraying bullets about, triggering flashing luminous special effects until you die or your eyes start bleeding. The twin-stick control of Geometry Wars is gone, with one stick to control your ship/squid/whatever and the A button to shoot stuff, but this tends to highlight why twin-sticks were a good idea in the first place as you need to be facing a baddie to shoot it, leading to avoidable collisions and no opportunity to run away when things get particularly hectic.

Things do get pretty intense, too. The game objective is simply to survive for 8 minutes, but to date I’ve not got close. SYNSO is sadistically engineered to fill the screen with more and more bouncing, flashing lights than it is possible to keep track of, making each game chaotic and unrelenting, and I can only applaud those with the stamina and reflexes to see the game through. There are no power-ups or levelling up, and the only collectables are glowing cubes that increase your score but can quite easily be mistaken for bullets and ‘collected’ to much frustration and colourful language- minimalist for sure, but at 80 points it’s hard to complain.

It’s difficult to sum up SYNSO. First appearing as a PC freeware title, the low price is bound to be the main selling point, and the game is a typical arcade throwaway treat- unlikely to command your attention for days on end, but on balance probably offering enough to justify the download if you’re an arcade fan. Whether you’ll play it again after the initial download is another thing; if you have a copy of Geometry Wars gathering virtual dust in your games library, it would probably be worth saving those 80 points to put towards something more substantial.