Aversion Therapy…

PART OF me wanted this game build to be woeful, just so I could say at the very end “Avoid. At all costs.” But curse NerfGames if they aren’t on course to a decent title. Inconsiderate, that’s what they are.

You’re a square. You are though. A wee green square. You want to avoid the yellow squares, which come careening towards you from all four sides of the screen, leaving a psychedelic wake rippling behind them. It’s a basic enough premise. Narrative junkies, be damned. (Oh fine, uh, the green square represents a floating section of Washington D.C. and the yellow squares are, um, steam-propelled space-tarsiers. There.)

From what we’ve played, it’s a mechanical delight. Marathon mode is basically: avoid the yellow blocks (space-tarsiers) for as long as possible for a high score. The left and right triggers of the pad allow you to morph the green square (chunk o’ Washington) both horizontally and vertically – useful for when the screen starts to fill with dozens of ever-faster yellow fiends and you need to squeeze between them.

Marathon Ex mode is similar but adds power-ups which help you along – one shrinks your square, another gives you a shield and another speeds you up. Save up enough of all three power-ups and you can clear the screen. The time limit on these feels spot-on – you never have enough time to feel comfortable, but always enough to get you out of a tight spot. At times it feels a lot like a simplified Pacifism mode from Geometry Wars 2. In fact, Avoid borrows ideas from Geometry Wars fairly liberally (the wavy grid aesthetic being deployed to good effect). As a result it has that same feeling of gleeful panic to it, like provoking a three-legged police dog. You laugh. You’re confidant you can escape this loser of a canine. But really you’re afraid that one day you’re gonna wake up without ankles for being too cocky.

The real beauty of the demonstration we were given though, comes in the multi-player of Charge mode. In this mode you’re given a corner of the screen as a base section. Small white motes randomly appear, drifting like gassy flies across the grid. To win, you have to drag a certain number of these back to your coloured section. All the while you still have to dodge the yellow squares (if you are struck, it doesn’t kill you out-right but immobilises you for a few seconds). Not to forget, you are competing with up to three other people. There is a lot of fun to be had in this particular mode, the only flaw being that it can end too soon, before the environmental nuisance that are the yellows can become overwhelmingly frantic.

It’s a basic game. Someone at the preview described it as “a one-stick non-shooter with capture-the-flag elements” thus robbing me of the prestige I could have got for naming such a genre myself. Curse you, whoever you are. But that is essentially what Avoid is turning out to be. NerfGames have time to make a mistake yet, but let’s hope they’re better than that. They are in talks with a publishing platform, they just won’t say which. However, considering that the colours of the power-ups are perfectly matched to the Xbox 360 controller buttons (and that is what we played it on), it isn’t a far stretch to imagine this bleeping up on Xbox Live. A PC version is also possible we’re told, scheduled for a month or two after the initial release.

For fans of mechanically driven indie darlings – Geometry Wars, Everyday Shooter and the like – Avoid is looking good so far, the only worry being the potential price. If it is too high, I wouldn’t be beyond recommending something with a bit more longevity – arguably, that is the one thing it might lack. But hopefully that is a pitfall NerfGames can avoid.

Hah! Avoid! See, it’s a joke. I made it work after all. Ha-ha. Ha.

Ha. [I hate you -ed]