Teyon released a small game on Nintendo DSiWare on Thursday, a simple shooter where you control a DNA as it tries to fight off viruses. What could be a game with some nice depth turns out to be too simple for it’s own good.
Simple pick up and play has been a hallmark of DS games. The ability to pick up a game, play it for a short period of time and then put it down and come back later has long been a positive thing. Escape the Virus is too simple and once you put it down there is no incentive to pick it up again.
GAME PLAY:
There are two modes of play in the game. The first is shooter mode and the second is Territory mode.
Shooter mode is just as simple as that. You take control of DNA in the centre of the battlefield and shoot at viruses as they surround you from all directions. The view of the battle field is top down and your DNA can move in four directions for a limited amount of space. The entire battlefield is a large plain square.
Territory mode has a little bit more to it, but has no great difference in game play. This time you have to protect circular ‘black holes’ from the viruses. Once the black hole is free of viruses it will charge, expanding and sucking in viruses once it has collapsed. If a virus breaches the black hole it will turn red until you blast it. Another will spawn elsewhere on the battlefield.
In both modes you play endlessly until you run out of lives. You get three to start.
There is one power up in the game. A small pill appears randomly on the battlefield every so often and allows you to fire in all directions simultaneously for a short period of time. This can come in handy to clear black holes of surrounding viruses to allow it to collapse.
CONTROLS:
There are two main ways of controlling your DNA in the game. You can either use the stylus on the touch screen or the directional pad.
With the action on the top screen there is no need to look at the bottom screen aside from checking your score and seeing how many lives remain.
The touch screen has much better control than the directional pad. Holding the stylus near the centre of the screen will move your DNA slowly while holding the stylus further from the centre will move your DNA more quickly. The DNA can only move quickly while using the directional pad, which makes things more difficult.
There is also the ability to jump over viruses, which can be very helpful if you get swarmed, but it is very clumsy to accomplish.
The gamer needs to double tap the screen with the stylus to jump, which is touch when you are holding the stylus on the screen to move. You can also press any of the buttons to jump, but this is next to impossible unless you are playing left handed.
There are no options to switch the jump function to the directional pad for those using their right hand to use the stylus.
One handy feature is the ability to zoom out by pressing the ‘L’ or ‘R’ buttons. While this can be helpful, especially in territory mode, the view only stays zoomed out while the button is held down. This would be much more useful if it could be locked in the wider view.
REPLAY VALUE:
The game is very simple with the only real goal being to survive and rack up a high score. Aside from beating your personal best score there is no incentive to play the game beyond your first try.
The game ranks the top five scores and times. Unfortunately there is no way to put your name into the rankings and all scores are credited to ‘New comer.’ If you were to pass the game around between friends there is no way to see who has the highest score. Other than beating the top score, there is nothing to strive towards.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
Overall the game looks nice. It is a bit pixely at times, but not overly so and the bright and colourful characters / environments are nice. The menu music is a very short piece of audio, looping endlessly after five seconds. The music during gameplay (same for both modes) is different, upbeat and doens’t wear on the gamer.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
While mindless fun in short bursts, there is nothing to entice gamers to want to play again. With no goal to reach, trophy to unlock, levels to open up or any other traditional incentive, the game boasts little replay value. And replay value is what makes a game valuable.
