Splat is the Geometry Wars clone that could. Despite it’s simple design, Splat wins with it’s intuitive and responsive controls, fun gameplay, and multi-layered online leaderboards. The game plays exactly like Geometry Wars, which is a good thing. Your right thumb aims the weapon (which automatically shoots), while your left thumb moves you around. As you destroy the oncoming colored circles, they leave behind paint splats in the background. The more you destroy, the more colored the background becomes.
There are various power ups in the game, including a cool time lapse item that slows down the enemies, and the in-game music. I never reached the end of the power ups, but it seems it could go on for a long time. Obviously, as you level up and get better, the enemies do the same. Eventually you will have to dodge getting shot along with touching the enemies. There are 3 difficulties, as well as a leaderboard for each one, both locally and worldwide.
- When you die, you leave behind quite a picture!
Presentation & Graphics
Very cool “coloring” concept as you shoot enemies. Animation is smooth. Nice style to the game. Could use some particle effects and an animation when enemies die or appear.
Sound
Great background song, and descent sound effects. Slowing down the music when using time lapse power up is super cool!
Gameplay
Very easy to control, and great use of power ups/weapons level ups. Definitely a challenging game, but very fun and easy to pick up and play.
Gamelife
Great use of local/online leaderboards for each difficulty. Would have liked to see a couple other modes of gameplay perhaps, but for what it is, this has potential to be the kind of game you could be coming back to for a while.
Game Rating
It’s always nice to see great games come from single-man developer teams. Splat is one such game. It won’t blow you away with visuals, or amaze you with some crazy gameplay element, but it’s a very solid arcade game. If you like Geometry Wars, you’ll instantly feel at home with Splat.
