My first reaction on finishing QIX++ was to slam it in 50 words or less. "It lasted around 1/20th the time I get out of most downloadable games, so I'll give it 1/20th the number of words that I usually submit for a review." Because, yes, if you've played any variant of Qix before, you will be able to complete this iteration’s 16 levels within roughly fifteen minutes. Adding insult to injury, there isn't even a unique enemy for each level. Some of the levels are so easy that you can complete them in less than ten seconds.

I was sitting there stewing in my frustration for a few hours before I realized that there was probably something I wasn't getting here. This has happened to me at least once before. I bought WarTech: Senko no ronde because I'd heard that it was a niche title that nevertheless represented the peak of its form. I'm a hipster, so I figured I could appreciate the best of the best... even (or perhaps especially) if it were obscure. I didn't get it, and I didn't have any Japanese friends nearby to explain it to me. So it sits on my shelf, waiting for me to understand.

With QIX++ there was something different going on. I can remember being around eight years old and playing the original Qix on my GameBoy. I was at the house of one of my mother's friends in New York, it was cold outside, and I sat on the carpeted stairs between the dining room and the den to listen to the grownup's conversation while playing one of their games.

Qix is a good fit for this situation: it's a metaphor for exploring new territory while trying to not bite off more than you can chew, kind of like a child listening in on an adult conversation he doesn't fully understand. You can win with ease if you simply cut tiny corners out of the level, but the most fun to be had is in ambitiously slicing your way through the middle of the room in order to clear the stage in one or two moves. This can be a recipe for disaster, both in our metaphor and in the game itself, but it's worth the risk if you can hack it.

In order to figure out what I was missing with QIX++, I started score-chasing. There are three achievements on this game that let you know what "playing well" constitutes: one for purchasing every upgrade before a sequence (8 levels) is over, one for scoring two million points, and one for scoring three million points. In order to eventually achieve the latter two, you've first got to figure out how to reach that first milestone. The answer is to claim at least 90% of every level, which gives you three points to spend on upgrades.

These upgrades are one of the new additions to the Qix formula, and they vary in usefulness. Right away, most players will want to max out the Cutter attribute. This allows you to move quickly through the void while “cutting” out a slice, and it’s a must if you want to be able to grab all the power-ups before the qix destroy them or grab a quick win. The Speed attribute is almost useless, so save that until the end (it increases your speed while traveling along safe borders). Advanced players will want to max their Luck second, which increases the bonus points you get from power-ups and killing Sparx and Pawns (little minions that some of the qix spawn to chase you along the safe borders). Beginning players will want to go for Shield instead, because it grants you extra lives for each level (the base amount is three, more than enough if you know what you’re doing).

The second new additions are the aforementioned power-ups. Qix will destroy these after colliding with them twice. The least useful is a power-up that destroys all sparx and pawns on the level. Second-most-lame are the bonus point containers. Two are quite valuable when you’re going after the big scores: freeze and shrink. Freeze will pause all enemy movement for five seconds, while shrink minimizes the size of the qix for easy capture. If you get a freeze directly after popping shrink, you’re almost guaranteed an easy victory.

Opening power-ups is something of a gamble. Most players will want to cut directly across a group of them to make sure the level’s qix can’t destroy them. But if you nab the freeze in one of these swipes, roughly half of its five-second duration will be eaten up by the animation that follows from unlocking other power-ups. Thus, masters will deftly claim one of them at a time to avoid waste.

The game’s metaphor changes rather drastically at high levels of play. Now it becomes less about crossing a desert or learning a new language. Rather, you should think of yourself as containing a viral outbreak or an enraged bull in progressively smaller chambers. You don’t want to completely cut out any of the level. Instead you leave tiny openings that the qix can’t escape through. This ensures that you’ll be able to capture it in a small area without accidentally hitting the minimum claimed space requirement for each level (typically between 70-85%).

Once the qix is in a small space, you cut tiny pieces of its death chamber out from around it. Then you wait for it to catch itself in a corner. Then you move in for the kill.

After two more hours of play, I still wasn’t at the level of competency required to score over 3,000,000 for a single sequence. I gave up at around 2.6 million. I believe you’d need to consistently score around 97% claimed for each level to achieve that final goal, and I simply ran out of patience. So, is this a good game if you both love the core mechanics and the thrill of the score chase?

No. The biggest problem is the enemy AI. It randomly selects a direction to move in instead of chasing you. Some of them may gravitate toward you, which is like one extra line of code, but it doesn’t make the experience any more thrilling. The butterfly qix is kind of tricky, because it throws tiny sparx all over the place that slow you down. Then there’s another qix that moves ridiculously quickly; however, most of them are so slow and stupid that you just feel bad for them. If you’re good enough at this game to attain really high scores, then you’re probably also good enough to play most bullet hell shooters. That is what you should be doing instead.

Don’t think that the multiplayer portion of the game will add any value. It’s sparsely-populated and laggy. It’s completely counterintuitive. It pauses the game every time somebody cuts out part of the level... and there are always four players in each game (minimum of two humans, with AI filling in the gaps). Killing other players is fun, because you can pretend you’re one of the bike racers in Tron. Most of the time, though, you’ll grab a shrink power-up just to watch some jerk on the other side of the screen cherry-pick the now-tiny qix before you get a chance to hoof it over there. It’s a depressing morass.

If the original Qix or Gals Panic were your favorite games ever, then you may enjoy this extension of the idea. It's priced at 800 MSP and available now. Everyone else should steer clear.

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The Good: It's Qix. It feels like childhood.

The Bad: It's Qix, the same AI they've been using since the 80s.

The Ugly: You will beat it within twenty minutes, tops.

Playthrough: Played offline and on for a total of four hours, gaining all but two achievements.

Disclosure: Complete downloadable game provided for review by Taito.