It's taken about 6 months, but I finally hunted down and brought home a copy of Flip-Out. Ever since I first owned my Jaguar back in February of 2001, this was a game I had my eye on. Why? Well, for starters, I've always been a fan of puzzle games, and since Flip-Out is one of the few available for the console that isn't on the Jaguar CD and isn't Zoop, I didn't have much selection in terms of potential puzzlers.

I successfully ordered this game from that marvelous house of wonders known as The Goat Store, LLC., in an order with two other games (whose reviews can be found here and here, for Wolfenstein 3d and Bubsy respectively), and I must say... ...

I was hoping for more.

[GRAPHICS]

Well, let's get one thing out of the way.. compared to some of the finer works of Jaguar visual accomplishment, Flip-Out does not stack up very well when sat down beside a game the likes of Alien vs. Predator, or even Wolfenstein for that matter. There is no 3D, there is not a particularily large amount of animation, colour, detail, or.. well, panash. BUT, there is a large amount of nifty looking spinning tiles, rendered of course, and some of the backgrounds are interesting.

Sadly the colour choices are very drab and bland.

This game in no way takes advantage of the potential power hiding in the dark recesses of the Jaguar hardware. Damn potential...

[SOUND FX/MUSIC]

Hmmm....

Well, quite frankly, the sounds are pretty fucking sad. That's really all there is to it.

Boring music, nearly completely unnoticable sound effects.. blarg.

...hahaha, yes, I realize that this was a very short evaluation of music and sound effects, but this game lacks decent examples of both.

[GAMEPLAY]

Flip-Out is essentially just a variation on those old number puzzles where you are given a square set of tiles and have to arrange them in a certain order by sliding them into position. The idea behind Flip-Out is that you 'flip' (who would've guessed...) the tiles rather than sliding them. You have to match all of the tiles up with their correct positions, which are indicated by colours and/or patterns (example: the red tile goes on the red square). ..actually, you won't always be dealing with tiles. Depending on the theme of the level, you can find yourself flipping plates of gelatinous food.

...I don't really feel like describing exactly how this game functions, since you can find that information elsewhere. This is because I am lazy.

Flip-Out can get pretty intense at many points, either due to the difficulty setting or where you are in the game. Sadly, the concept just isn't that interesting.. I would have rather seen a clever knock-off of Tetris or Puyo-Puyo, something along the lines of Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo or Tecmo Stackers. Anything involving arranging blocks that fall from the sky would be superior to this attempt at puzzle originality.

[OVERALL]

It may not be the game I was hoping it would be, but hey.. It's definately not within the ranks of higher-end Jaguar titles, but you could do worse (think Bubsy).

[GRAPHICS] - 6.4/10

[SOUND FX/MUSIC] - 4.8/10

[GAMEPLAY] - 5.9/10

[OVERALL] - 5.8/10 (not an average)