Also On: PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: Atari
Developer: DEVELOPER
Medium: Graphite Lab
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E
qomp2 begins with a typical game of PONG. Two bats hitting a square ball back and forth to points. Then suddenly, the square goes through a change and becomes an actual ball, and begins it’s quest to escape being hit back and forth by bats, into to a world of… being hit back and forth on walls and other objects. You barely have control of the ball with one button controlling a quick hop in an opposite direction and a charge up move that allows it to smash through some walls and escape being hit by something. The quick hop you can do does help you through some tight spots, but 90% of your control comes from the walls and momentum of the ball itself. Every room the ball enters into is a puzzle to figure out how to make it to the next room or pick up the special item that appears in each of the stages. Occasionally you can find hidden rooms or exits, but these are few and far between.
You have infinite lives, and the only enemies I’ve some across are spike walls and spinning paddles that will force you back to your last checkpoint. There are some larger “boss” characters that you have to figure out how to beat, but these “fights” are over pretty quick once you figure out the best way to end them. It’s all trial and error with every single room with qomp2 and gets boring rather quickly.
You have about 30 “worlds” to make it through. Each world containing a special item that can be found in certain rooms. It adds a little replay value to go back and try to find all of these items, but the effort to try and collect them might not be enough motivation to retry anything you’ve already beaten. Sometimes, you come across some cannon swirls that you can control the way your ball goes, these are mostly for positioning yourself to take out a destructible wall or hit a weak point of the boss puzzles. I must say that it was fun for a short while, but as I progressed, I became more aware that I was not having much fun.
As stated before, controlling the ball is something you wish you could do, but ultimately cannot in most cases. The hop and charge moves DO help occasionally, but you are a slave to bouncing off of walls, moving walls and trying to make trick shots so you don’t run into spikes. In the beginning, the rooms are easy and you actually feel like you have some form of control, but later on you realize that most of control is based on the luck of momentum. The visuals in qomp2 are bleak and dark, with very minimal color and animations. You really get a sense of feeling alone bouncing through these dark tunnels and rooms that is only augmented by the slow, grim music playing in the background.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy my time with qomp2. I found it to be boring, frustrating and not very fun overall. Granted there is NOTHING wrong with the game itself, as everything is presented as intended by the developers. It’s just one of those games that will not appeal to everyone. Some people out there may like it while others, like me, will find it repetitive and boring. If you are looking for a puzzle game, based off of a classic game that is challenging to the mind while offering a feeling of slight accomplishment, then you should give this one a try. Everyone else, I suggest you skip this one. qomp2 is not broken or bad, but definitely not for everyone.
Note: Atari provided us with a qomp2 PS5 code for review purposes.
