Yep,
it certainly seems as if the person responsible "tripped" at
some point, probably while actually designing this unusual game. When I
say "tripped", I DON’T mean "fell down" or even
"blew it"... I mean "was hopped up on LSD"! One of the
great underrat’d and non-review’d games of the 3DO era, Trip’d is
of the Tetris family of games, where stuff falls from the top and
you have to keep it all in order near the bottom. I haven’t played many
games of this genre that I would consider bad, but there aren’t many
that rise above mediocre, either. Trip’d is near the high end of
the mediocre scale, and that’s quite an accomplishment.
What sets this game apart from the countless clones of Tetris is its bizarre environment. You are preventing "alien eggs" from reaching the earth. The eggs come in various shapes and colors which, when placed together in a line of four, causes all four to disappear. Anything lying on top of the set drops down to take its place (much like Sega’s Columns or Puyo Puyo). The change in gameplay occurs when you form a square, where rather than disappearing, the set turns into a giant alien that takes up four eggs’ worth of space. In order to remove the alien, you’ll need to match four of the same colored eggs AGAIN, after which the eggs and the alien disappear.
Another catch: when an alien disappears, it triggers an event. The
effects will vary depending on which alien type you’re playing and
whether you’re in one or two player mode. Usually it’s something that
really helps, like an entire layer or two of eggs will disappear from your
stack or your opponent’s stack will increase. There’s one alien,
though, that’s always going to cause you trouble - even eliminating him
causes extra eggs to fall on YOUR side.
This may not sound all that exciting, and truth is, it’s not unless you really enjoy these kinds of games. If you do, Trip’d is a heckuva lot of fun. It also features some wacky graphics and a very unusual "Dance" mode that is reminiscent of the Toe Jam & Earl rap mode. Every key represents an instrument and/or video effect. Make beautiful music or just annoy anyone else in your house at the time, it’s fun either way. Seek it out, puzzle fans.
