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Nous is a funny kind of game. Immediately after starting it, the game taunts you. In a lot of ways, it feels like GLaDOS from the Portal series is talking to you, but without the sarcastic voice. It is hard to say much more about the narrative without ruining it, but these opening moments are basically glorified tutorials. More or less though, this is a top down “shooter.” The attack is more like a dash though, which eliminates your space liquid-looking enemies. Your “ship” looks like an eye ball and you float around in some abstract space, which is populated by blocky and spiky space objects.
The enemies in this title are mostly blobs of the orange variety, which pretty much look like what liquid looks like in zero gravity. There are also bigger enemies that actually shoot you. Either way, you can dash through them to destroy them. The “ship” also has the ability to suck things into it, which is useful for blue blobs which heal you. If you accidentally suck an orange enemy close to you, it may injure you. Healing yourself is a little bit complicated, in that orange and blue blobs are often constantly near each other.
The worst enemies you have to deal with are the giant blocks and spikes that can kill you in an instant. They usually float around the box you are trapped in, but the box gradually gets smaller and tougher to navigate around without dying. Nous is not too difficult though, but does require common sense as the name implies.
The game is not without it’s flaws though. There is a slight glitch in the game that allowed me to pass clean through a spike bed, by just dashing through it. This was in the beginning of the game, and it made learning how to play all the more confusing. Getting acclimated to the control scheme is a bit troublesome as your only attack is to dash; I pressed almost every button I could think of expecting a gun. This game is playable with an Xbox controller (wired via USB) as well, which makes it easier to navigate around. Nous is a fun game to try out though, and is available to play for free via the official site.
[Image via Awesome Shark Volcano]
