Vimm's Lair: SNES Reviews - S.O.S: Sink or Swim
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S.O.S: Sink or Swim

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Sound:
Gameplay:
Overall:		 6.67
7.33
7.00
7.33
Votes: 6
Reviews: 1


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Reviewer: Ralf Loire Date: Aug 3, 2002
I'm surprised that hardly anyone I know has even played this game. Maybe it's because of the game's box art (I'll admit, when I saw this game in the shelves of stores, I wasn't very impressed with the box art), and I'm wondering if that had something to do with this game not catching much interest in a lot of gamers. When I decided to give this game a try about a week or so ago, I couldn't believe what I was playing.

S.O.S is a rather interesting game, to be honest. I've beaten this game several times, and I still seem to enjoy playing it now and then. It's got a unique way of making itself a platformer, yet, somewhat of a puzzle game.

As you play through S.O.S., the ship rotates at any random time, thus, changing the angle at which you have to operate at. This can be played to your advantage or disadvantage, and, while at times can be a pain, it can allow access to other places that you normally can't reach at a straight 90 degrees angle.

Plus, the game's got a good amount of depth. The objective in S.O.S, is to escape the capsized ship in an hour. Not as easy a task as you may think, as there are also a ton of survivors that you can take along with you, should you meet them and get them to go with you when you've done the right thing, and each survivor is worth a different number of points. But you can only take 7 or so with you, some of them being objective characters for that character you are playing. So, there are several different endings.

My only major gripe with this game is the survivors' AI... at times when the ship capsizes, and you call them to come to you, they'll get stuck trying to get past an obstacle or a platform, or sometimes making a bad jump that gets them killed... and that can be annoying at times.

All in all, S.O.S. is as an impressive game as it is interesting. And I still can't see why hardly anyone didn't play this game back when it came out.

Graphics: 8
The sprites all have excellent animations, as well as tons of them, and while they all aren't the most fluid, they come in different actions, and it's pretty cool to know that this game at least wasn't bland with it's characters.

Sound: 8
The sound isn't really that bad. It's actually pretty okay to me. The music can give a good dramatic feel to the situation your character is in.

Gameplay: 7
It's sort of like... Prince of Persia... in a way. Except you don't run around killing guards and whatnot. I kind of really like the insight of the gameplay, and provides a neat idea to the whole escaping-a-sinking-ship storyline. The AI of the survivors getting past certain obstacles could have been improved on a lot more though... >.<;

Overall: 8
S.O.S is a fun game to play, and has a good amount of depth in it. With being able to play as 4 different characters and each of them having a few different endings all of their own, this is a game worth your time. It's simple to play once you learn how everything works, and it provides you with good enough challenge.

Even though this game may have a couple downsides, S.O.S is still a worthwhile game to play, and will keep you busy for a while. As long as you can work around the little kinks this game has, you won't be disappointed by it. =)