Chaos Node & Urban Space Squirrels Reviews

Two games, 80 MS points each.

First up, Chaos Node. This reminds me a lot of the arcade game, Bust a Move. Like Bust a Move, in Chaos Node, you have a bunch of colored balls & shapes, and you shoot colored balls at them. Hit the same colors and you’ll destroy them and get points. Where it differs from that classic game is that in Chaos Node, true to its name, there’s a whole lot more chaos. Your gun is in the middle of the screen and whenever you hit a wrong colored ball, it bounces away which in turn will hit other balls and before long everything on screen is bouncing all over the place.

After playing Chaos Node for 10-20 minutes I started to warm to it, but even so I’m not sure that I’d recommend it. The game felt TOO chaotic – like whether or not I suceeded was based as much on luck as skill. But hey, even though I didn’t love it, it wasn’t innately bad so give the trial a go and see if its particular brand of gameplay is for you.

Second, we have Urban Space Squirrels, developed by a group of student at the University of Utah. As an alumni of BYU (the arch-rival of the University of Utah), it hurts me to say it, but Urban Space Squirrels is actually pretty good. It has a nice visual style, a decent sense of humor, and the gameplay (which generally involves throwing bombs and then using them to propel yourself through levels) is enjoyable as well. Well worth the low price they’re asking for it.