Qix

"The concept is good, even though the title doesn't follow the 'QU' rule."

I thought it was always 'QU' aside from that country Qatar... well, whatever. Qix, unleashed by Taito in the early 90's, is all about territory grabbing. You play the role of this little thing, and your objective is to draw lines. Once these lines fully surround an area, you gain control of it, and the pesky thing that's flying around cannot go in there (neither can you, since your thing must always travel along the outer edges of the playing field, aside from when you're drawing. As for the aforementioned pesky flying thing, if it touches you or the line you're currently drawing, you die. If you wait too long, these little spark things start appearing on the edges and moving around. Can you guess what happens if a spark thing touches you? That's right kiddies, you die. Pretty simple concept, overall, but it's a good one. For the gamers out there who prefer getting extra points for doing harder things, you can use a slower draw. If you succeed with it, you get double points. It's very, very slow though, so don't try to beat the entire stage with it. To beat a stage, you must claim 75% of the area. It's rather easy at first, but they crank it up later on, as they add more pesky flying things and raise the bar on the area you need to take. This is one of the better puzzlers out there, and you'll see why in the breakdown...

Graphics: 5/10
Beautifully mastered 3-D environments, eye-popping visual effects, incredibly realistic explosions, and highly detailed textures... will not be found here. The graphics pretty much suck, but since it's NES, I'm a bit lenient. There's just lines... white lines on a black background, with the only real color coming from the area you take. Well, whatever, it's NES, so I don't expect much. I still think they could've done better, which gets them a 5 for graphics.

Audio: 3/10
Mute. The music in the beginning is a bit catchy, but other than that, the rest of the game's audio could've been better. I don't think they used the NES' graphics and sound to their full extent, and since they did a worse job with the sound than they did with the graphics, they'll only receive a 3 from me.

Challenge: 7/10
It's pretty tough, but after a while you'll get the hang of it. Then they start throwing out more enemies, and making them faster, so the challenge keeps going up. It's good enough to challenge the hardcore gamer, but also good enough to not frustrate the casual gamer. Therefore, it gets a solid 7 for challenge.

Gameplay: 8/10
This is one of them ore unique puzzlers out there. And although you're not really solving a puzzle, the puzzle elements of thinking about every move before you do it, doing it quickly, etc. are all there. Some might even call this one a strategy game, but it's mainly a puzzler. Simple controls that react well, a good, unique puzzle element, and the 2 player feature are all good enough to collect an 8 in the gameplay department.

Overall: 7/10
Overall, it's a good game, with a fun, unique concept. I think they could've presented it a little better, but it doesn't kill the game all that much. I suggest going out and getting it if you like puzzlers, since this one will keep your interest for quite a while, something a lot of NES games failed to do...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/02, Updated 06/13/02