There was a saying in the first season of Lost that summed up the survivors' best chances to stay alive on the mysterious island, "Live together, die alone". That mantra comes to life in the brilliant new XBox Live Arcade title, Schizoid. As the first fruit picked off the XBLA Game Studio Express tree, it is certainly ripe.
After getting a glimpse of what the Creators Club had to offer with enticing demos a few months back, Schizoid is the first such offering available for sale on XBLA. The game touts itself as 'the most co-op game ever'. It is one hell of a bold claim, landing on the platform that has built its success on amazing co-op experiences like Gears Of War and Crackdown. Still, they are absolutely correct. The title changes the way you think of a co-op game, and delivers the goods. In most co-op offerings, your partner is more of a bonus. It is great that they are there, but you could realistically play the game just fine without them. That all changes with Schizoid.
The game has such a brilliant and simple concept that you have to wonder how it has not happened before. There are two ships on the screen, one red and the other blue. Each ship can only defeat enemies of the same color, and die as soon as an enemy of any other color touches them. Making matters more difficult, there is no shooting in the game at all. To defeat the enemies, you must run into them with the same colored ship. It sounds like an easy game to handle, but thanks to a wealth of increasingly smart and well-designed enemies, it becomes very hard very fast.
The game offers a decent set of modes, both in terms of co-op and solo play. It is a toss-up as to which is more difficult and frustratingly addictive. On the solo side, they offer a training mode where you control the blue ship and the game controls the red one. It is a decent introduction to the concepts of the game, but not quite the way the game was designed to play. Each type of enemy reacts differently. Some, like the scorpion looking baddies, will slowly chase after the opposing ship even when the ship that can kill them is in the middle. Other enemies, like the different varieties of stars, will chase far more quickly and intelligently. The stars will only glide after their prey when within close-range, and will do all they can to avoid the ship of their same color.
The best plan of attack is to scan each level for enemy locations before moving at all, since the levels will not begin to move until the first ship does. Getting the computer to understand your battle plan is only slightly trickier than getting your other hand to, which is what you must do on the other solo mode. Uberschizoid is essentially high-level brain training for gamers. Each of the analog sticks on your controller handles the movement of one of the ships, with the blue assigned to the left-stick and the red to the right. Your best bet is to keep both ships almost on top of each other to help protect the other. Keeping them close is easier said than done, as moving both of your thumbs in a synchronized fashion is not a normal gaming skill. Things get difficult incredibly fast, especially when you need to send your red ship into the left-hand side of the screen. The game tries to help you keep the colors and your thumbs straight in your mind by attaching a same-colored string from the lower corners of the screen to the ships. It is still an incredibly rewarding experience for gamers looking for a fresh challenge.
