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On yoyogames.com there are games that I appreciate, games that I enjoy, and a few games that fill me with jealousy. Kaos is one of those games, because I would dearly love to have been the one to make it. Alas, it was not I that created such brilliance. It was the egotistically-named developer commander of games. But Kaos is also a game that fills me with frustration. Not because it's hard, but because it could be something close to shoot-em-up perfection, if not for some niggling balancing issues that stifle its incredible potential.
First of all, Kaos is a feast for the eyes. Its minimalist artstyle is well executed and well thought out, and the various explosions, halos, and glow effects are all top-of-the-line. There's even optional "motion blur" (although it has hardly any effect). Even the game's menus look great, albeit a little hard to read due to text glow (the game does allow you to disable text glow by pressing the 'g' key, but it makes the menus a lot less pretty). There are a few small issues I have with the visuals--for instance, the rumble effect that accompanies explosions is a little sluggish and looses its impact as a result--but overall Kaos is one of the better-looking GM games out there.
Of course, what good are amazing graphics without killer gameplay ot back them up? Luckily, Kaos is an absolute blast. Not only do you have polished arcadey action, fantastic precise controls, and tons of creative enemies that are all fun to blow up, but you also have a fully fledged upgrade system, which lets you augment your puny little ship with increased speed and armor, better firepower, and even an auto-targeting machinegun turret. But herein lies the one major flaw with Kaos: it isn't a very well-balanced game. You see, once you've maxed out every upgrade (which can be done quite quickly and easily), it's nearly impossible to lose. Enemies spawn in far to infrequently, even when playing on the "extra hard" Frenzy mode. After about 5 minutes, the game turns into an extended session of "wait for an enemy to spawn, kill said enemy, rinse and repeat." It's really quite silly that a game of this caliber is dragged down by so simple a thing, and I earnestly hope that commander of games fixes this issue soon. Because it's the only thing keeping this game from earning my complete unreserved praise.
Well, that and its lack of sound effects. Kaos doesn't even feature as much as a blip or boop when you fire, and having some quality sound to accompany the quality visuals would just be the cake on the icing. Musically, Kaos has one (and only one) phenomenal techno track which perfectly fits the game, and does a great job of "pumping you up."
All in all, Kaos is a magnificent arcade shooter that has the potential of being a Yoyo classic, if its issue of being too easy gets resolved. Now, I usually don't review things based on the slippery slope of "potential" (which is why I'm wary of WIP games). I mean, most of the games I've played have the potential to be great, if the developer ends up fixing all the issues after I review it. And in its current state, Kaos is really only a 4/5, if that. But I think I'm going to break my rule just this once, because this is not a game that is lacking. This is a game that needs its latent potential freed. Commander of games, you'd better start fixing your balancing issues and upload a new version. Kaos is receiving my first 5/5.
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