Review by: Jason McMaster

In Fortix, a remake of the classic arcade game Qix, you play the role of a knight trying to take back fortifications from, well, some bad people and dragons. You do this by venturing out from the line drawn around the entire screen. This base line is where you start every level and you conquer more area by leaving the base line, surrounding an area and returning to the base line. However, once you leave the line, you become vulnerable to the denizens of the world and their cannons.

You don’t have to conquer the world bare-handed, thankfully, as the game provides power-ups and other ways to destroy the bad guys. Each map has little triggers scattered about that, once captured, control catapults that will destroy your enemies’ gun emplacements. The game also has actual power-ups, such as slow time and extra defense, which can be useful in a pinch. Enemies can also be destroyed by capturing the ground they are currently on.

Fortix is a cute and intriguing game with a giant pitfall – one strategy completely annihilates the game. While playing, I tried multiple tactics to varying degrees of success. You can, of course, cut off large sections of the map, or try to kill off the enemies first, but the real key is making small squares through the center of the playing field. You build a peninsula through the center and then, when no one is looking, run from the tip of your construct to the edge of the map. Boom! That completely cuts off half of the map and all you have to do is make a few small moves to capture the base itself. You can do this for every part of Fortix. In fact, with this strategy, I beat the game in about 20 minutes.

I really liked Fortix until I discovered I could cheese my way to victory. Of course, you don’t have to play that way, but once you know you can, it’s basically over. Since Fortix isn’t a particularly long game in the first place, being able to blaze through every level takes some of the fun out of it.