It is not often that you can clearly see that a game is actually trying to do something different from the norm. More often than not when a game company claims to have produced something special that is set aside from the norm they are stretching the truth. The makers of the Xotic are not one of these companies. The bright colors and flashing lights gives me sore eyes and a prolonged session makes it a little hard to see after. This is one of the brightest games you will play on your PC this, or any other, year. There is not a dash of sepia in any screen of this game. It is graphically bright and over the top. This is the Teletubbies of first person shooters. It is what you would imagine a bad acid trip would be like. It is an almost Lovecraftian hell you're trapped in and have to escape.
Gameplay wise it is a first person arcade shooter action game with puzzles. Most of the game is made up of setting up complicated combos of blowing various colored blobs that are placed around each level. Combat is caused when manifestations of the evil that caused the colorful mess attack you to prevent your progress. Instead of "maps," it is more like a level which you try to clear as fast as you can with the most panache. You are armed with a single weapon which you can buy power-ups and alterations to.
Therein lies one of the problems with the game — switching between variations of the weapon can be slow and frustrating in the middle of the frenetic pace of the game. It has a similar problem to Hard Reset in that area. At least at the lower levels I failed to see much difference between the variations of the projectile types. Considering you have enemies and various gun turrets to eliminate on several levels this can get annoying quickly.
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