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Squid Yes, Not So Octopus is one of those great reasons to be alive. It’s cramming everything that’s lovely about those old arcade-style shooters people over a certain age go on about into a high-definition package of concentrated awesome. Created by one-man wrecking crew Robert Fearon and ported by Andy Noble, SYNSO belongs to the ever expanding group of arena shooters (though with no dual-stick controls, you shoot with a button) and it’s more enjoyable than most.

SYNSO is a visual kick in the balls but in a good way, like if you had that strange fetish where you like being kicked in the balls. The love for Eugene Jarvis and Jeff Minter, both masters of fantastic games and pretty graphics, shine through the game. The distinct mix between Minter-esque visualizer explosions and more classic character and enemy design, complete with pretty chunky pixels, fits the game like a glove. Much like Space Giraffe the visuals also become a part of the gameplay. To truly master SYNSO you must not memorize bullet patterns, instead you need to memorize visual effects that occur when enemies spawn and die. I found this a very interesting, hopefully intentional part of the game that led to some proper revelations during play.

The other major gameplay quirk in SYNSO is the timeframe. The main goal of the game is to survive for 8 minutes while scoring as close to 9 as possible. Yes, 9. It’s actually quite clever to use prime numbers since it makes the game feel a little more easy to wrap your head around. The survival format really makes the game a challenge because make no mistake, SYNSO is not an easy game. You will NOT zoom through the 8 minutes in your first couple of playthroughs but it’s enjoyable enough to try until you do just that. Then, when you’ve finally completed the game, you realize that you totally forgot about scoring aspect. The score in SYNSO increases by 1 every minute you’ve played so if you’d score nothing from killing (something that’s obviously not possible) you’d end up with 8 during the end. This is where the secret of the prime numbers come in, you have 8 decimals to go with that. This is your “normal” scoring, complete with multiplier and score when you shoot the baddies. To get as close to 9 as possible you need to make sure you use that multiplier efficiently and if you’re playing REALLY well, lose it so you don’t go too much past 9. Scoring in this game takes a long time to master to say the least but that just make you want to play oh so much more.

For the 360 version (SYNSO was originally for one of those PC things, whatever those are) a wealth of gameplay options has been added to customize the experience. It might not seem like much but it’s full of fun things, including the VERY admirable One Switch control feature for people with disabilities. I know I look like I’m just throwing praise at games all the time but damnit, these are awesome games that I really fancy. SYNSO is definitely one of those games. For 80MSP (ONE PUNY EARTH DOLLAR!) you owe it to yourself to buy this. The man behind the game (and the man behind the port) are well deserving of your money and YOU are well deserving of severe hand sweat.