POSTED 20/7/12


DYAD

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PS3/PSN

“I can see the colours!” – Lisa Simpson.

Yes, the most wonderfully brainy Simpson of all was royally off her permanently yet-to-flower breasty-bits when her visual and aural senses went all congealy at Duff Gardens. You could be straighter than Neddily-Ned Flanders, stick on Dyad and suddenly know what tripping’s like. Well, we’re guessing, ’cos we’d never, ever do something naughty like that, natch...

It’s easy to throw possible influences out there – so we will. Tempest, Wipeout, Child of Eden (so Rez as well), Lumines, F-Zero – but genre-wise Dyad’s all of them, none of them, bits of them and bits of other things. It’s a shooter, but it isn’t. It’s a puzzler, but it isn’t. It’s a racer, but it isn’t.

Yeah, right now we’re making about as much sense as we normally do, but Dyad’s the sort of wondrously confuddling concoction that electrozaps senses that you didn’t realise had fizzled down to autopilotesque nubs. Through 27 trippy levels it hypnotises visually and captivates aurally, beckoning you to chill. But relax too much and you’ll never achieve set goals (which, rare for a PSN release, hold the foul temptress lure of a platinum trophy). It’s one of those riddle/enigma/conundrum concoctions and, if you hadn’t guessed already, we reckon it’s ace.

Missions vary, from simply traversing various kaleidoscopic tunnels as speedily as possible to specific enemy picking-off. The latter has an effect on the former, however, so the quicker you accurately zot bad vectory things, the quicker your good vectory thing shooms to scorevana. So, you can be completely at one, collide with a gremmie and jolt back to reality quicker than Speedy Gonzales with a nitrous button. Ow!

Simple enough to engage, but challenging enough to, umm, challenge, Dyad won’t click with everybody. But those with which it does will be hooked...

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