Similar to fl0w, Osmos is one of those games that is very hard to categorize. I picked it up for the ipad a few weeks ago and have been in a constant state of enamorment with the title, and I am glad to see a breath of fresh air (with regards to gameplay) come into my play schedule.
The object of the game is to becomse the biggest fish in the sea by consuming the other smaller fish. Simply put, to win the round your mote (biomass) must be the biggest and able to consume anything else on the board. The only way to move your spherical mote around the screen is to propel it by shedding a smaller piece of your mote to achieve propulsion. This is one of the most brilliant parts of the gameplay, every single movement in the game ends up being a small bet. To capture another piece of mote floating near you, you must propel yourself over to it, however if you expel too much you may shrink enough in mass to be consumed by your initial target. Dependent upon the speed and trajectory of the target this makes for an brain wrenching experience in which one must judge a number of variables just to make a small step towards the goal of becoming the ultimate mote on the board.
The graphics and music are what I would consider the top tier of ipad games currently released to date. The pulsing innards of your mote almost have a translucent
cuddlefish-like ripple that works perfectly with the ambient high quality electronica soundtrack that accompanies the game. There is a constant "pulse" to the game in that the other Motes are constantly trying to pick you off with a seemingly random set of plans.
There are 2 game modes available; a story mode which will put the player on a path through a few rounds of gameplay in which they will learn how to maneuver in the game and the different types of motes, and the second is an arcade portion of the game which is great for small playsessions. I think there is a benchmark in the story mode that must be achieved before the arcade mode is opened up.
In short I would give this game a 9 out of 10. It is extremely polished and I don't know if I have played another title on the ipad that comes close to the originality of the game and its graphics. This review is based on the
ipad version of the game. There is also an
iphone version of the game, and as of last week, a PC version on
Steam.
Gaming
ipad