Qix

 
A reader told me he enjoyed reading about lesser known GB games. Well, I have many hundreds of games to write about so there will be many lesser knowns. Only I can't write about are text heavy games, since I only play Japanese versions.

Qix is an arcade game that was originally released in 1981 by Taito. It is probably alright if all you want is to move something around, but nine years later the Game Boy should have been capable of more.



Qix was a game I received one Christmas. I'm glad I also got other games. Qix is about moving your little sparkle and make blocks, while avoiding the enemy called Qix. You press A to move the sparkle away from the border. Then you move it to create an enclosed block. The goal is to take at least 75% on each screen. When you move around the screen, you are vulnerable to the enemy Qix.

The game play isn't that bad. It is a decent idea. However, like many Pacman ports, the GB game doesn't deliver much. The main issue I always had with the gameplay is that the Qix moves to randomly. He may stay in one part of the screen for a while, then suddenly move at you with full speed. This ruins the strategy element.

I think you just keep on playing until you die to get a high score. As the GB game can't save high scores, that too will be lost when you reset.
I give it 3/5 (revised)

Some thing that would have improved the game: Better graphics, more varied game play, maybe boss levels, a continue feature of some kind, a way to keep track of level progression, less random Qix, music, and maybe powerups.

Many of these ideas were later implemented in Volfied on the Pc Engine which was actually released earlier, in 1990. That's a pretty nice game. Unfortunately they left out a continue feature, or that game could have been awesome.
There are so many Tetris clones so let's hope they get the Qix idea right sometime.