My Take: Think Pipe Mania and Tron Lightcycle. Redirect the virus' infection by rotating the circuits while dodging the anti-virus countermeasure drone spiders. Elements such as locked circuits and red game over blocks get thrown in later. Eventually, you get to a point where it's solely based on timing your moves around the spiders. Tedious.

Graphics: The character and level design are simple, but worked for what they are. The little cutscenes follow an art style reminiscent of what you would see on Cartoon Network in the mid 90's, just not as good. Also the resolution is locked at 1280x720 so if you switch the settings to 1980x720, you get a horrible border all the way around the screen.

Sound: So little going on here that the only thing worth mentioning is the respawn noise is annoying.

Music: Surprisingly solid with a track or two I'd actually listen to outside the game.

Controls: Simple enough bindings, you've got directional controls, glitch drop, and circuit rotation. The game recommends the controller, but you can honestly make do with the keyboard. I couldn't tell any difference in the gameplay between the two.

Did I Finish It: No.

Will I Finish It: Eventually, but I'm so irritated with the later levels, I'm taking an indefinite break.

Should You Buy It: Only if the concept interests you, snag it in a bundle or if you see it for 80% or less.

The idea is interesting and puzzles seem to be interesting for a while too, but it became fast just a boring chore and hard. Can't tell why exactly, but simply did not seem interesting enough to play more. If you like fast puzzling and memorizing trails through a maze, go for it, else, play some puzzle game.

An interesting mash up born when you cross Pipe Mania and Qix. The game plays a lot like Pipe Mania with the player controlling Tom, who moves around the gridded game area and spins the 'pipe' pieces by moving around them and holding a button, all while avoiding enemies. Tom has 'health' (time bar) that slowly drops over time and is reduced further when hit by an enemy.

This game has potential, given its inclusion of a bare but amusing story that gives context to the player's actions, as the game slowly introduces new concepts, powerups and enemy types. It also rewards the player with a few 'skip tokens' every new world, so if you are really stuck on a level you can still continue playing.

Unfortunately, I just feel that the game lacks polish and refinement as the difficulty spikes and curve seem to be pretty uneven, and the very fast and 'instakill' enemies just seem to throw the balance out of whack. There is a nice mix between standard puzzle and enemy levels, however the game as a whole did not hold my interest very well with the fairly plain looking levels, fairly shallow game mechanics and unfair 'twitchy' game movements required in later levels just to survive, all while trying to think how to solve the actual puzzle.

Overall, an enjoyable but flawed puzzle game that hardcore difficult puzzle fans will love but most people will find just too unremarkable and difficult to be enjoyable. 6/10.
Finally, kudos to the people in the audio department for a memorable and enjoyable soundtrack! One of the best parts of the game for sure.

I remember that I bought this game early on and then could not play it for years because it had some kind of a bug with my hardware that made the game just turn black at random. Despite this, my excitement never waned.

Fast-forward to now when I have a new PC and this bug is gone, and I can say that this is an incredibly shallow game. Every 3-5 levels a new gimmick is thrown into the mix, but they don't really make it better so much as just turn a set of levels into something beyond the basic Pipe Dream gameplay. The biggest issue is that, unless there's some late-game revelation I never got to, the board remains roughly the same size and you're just trying to connect everything, sometimes before it all locks up and screws you on a few stages. Scoring is just based on speed, turning a puzzle into an action game if you want rewards: figure out the solution, then do it 30 seconds faster without dying.

Fun mix of puzzles; challenging at times, with the occasional reflex-testing moment and a decent little storyline that ties it all together.

- Skinny from the Fat B*stard (curator link)

Отличная головоломка,которую можно играть долго и тем более таких игр очень мало,кроме браузерных
Плюсы:
1) Вид жанра и сама суть игры,уже может очень сильно привязать на многие часы
2) В игре несколько эпизодов и в каждом эпизоде несоклько уровней,но есть очень тяжелые,на мой взгляд,которые с первого раза не пройдешь
3) Игру можно играть и в 2,для облегчения (проверял,так и есть,становится играть веселее и легче с напарником,чем 1)
Минусы:
1) Соундтрек,не очень,режет уши
2) Однообразное,уже через 2 эпизода,можете подумать,что уже это играли
Оценка 7.5 из 10

The game is simple, but it becomes harder the more you play it. Feel free to try it if you're really bored and you're looking for something to waste time. I will not say this is a bad game, but it is far from being 100% good.

I really love this game the levels is hard but a still a good game for me.

Disclaimer: I haven't played the Multiplayer element of the game and my review is only reflective of the single player experience.

I decided to play this game after it had been in my library for almost a year from a Humble Bundle I had purchased. I thought it would at least keep my attention for a while as it was classified as a puzzle game, but to my dismay it wasn't really a puzzle game overall.

The game is mostly a twitch/reaction game with some puzzle elements. The game takes its roots in the genre Pipe Mania made popular. You have to move circuit pieces around so that you have a complete circuit/flow of the virus and the level is complete. You may ask "But isn't that a puzzle game?" and to that question I would say it is a puzzle game.The last half of the game it introduces too many elements for it to remain a puzzle game. The later elements all rely on the player moving quickly and trying to think on their toes and often that leads to death. A good puzzle game gives the player time to do the puzzles and doesn't require ADHD levels of movement while still trying to solve a puzzle.

Many design choices made in the game are inherently flawed. After you complete a level it takes you back to the main board to select a level wherein you will often find that you have to move around a couple times to get to the next level. I would have liked to see the game progress you to the next level after a level is completed. My next issue is with the music. There felt like there were 3 tracks of music that were randomly selected at the start of a level. I would have liked to have seen a couple tracks for each world and I would have liked it if the music didn't change every single time I had to restart a level. The sound effects are some of the most nerve-wracking I have heard in a while that I ended up just disabling sound to play the game.

Overall the game is an "Okay" experience but I know for sure that I will not play it anymore. It's not worth $10 and has the same amount of content I would expect from a $3 mobile app. I'd have to say to all my friends to give this game a pass as there are plenty of other games you can get that are better for the same price point.

I like the concept behind this, what with you controlling a virus in an effort to infect various machinery. Most of the puzzles are an entertaining way of blowing a couple of minutes here or there, but those boards with an antagonist element, while novel, are more frustrating than tense. Due to the way Tom moves in a "notched" manner across the grid, getting out of harm's way is often down to how fast you can hammer a given directional key. Twitch gaming isn't really something I'm looking for in a timed puzzle game. The ability to skip stages is doled out piecemeal as a reward for progression, and although using them feels a bit like throwing up a white flag, those with no compunctions about this will find the feature handy. Overall I'd rate this a bit above average.

It is a good puzzle game with good dev support, and it is a blast.

One day it would be so great to go up to Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear games and say to him about A Virus Named TOM, ''Sir, you have created a game that is both original and good. Sadly the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.''

Harsh? I don’t think so. A Virus Named TOM is a massively overrated game. Although it breaks new ground in it fantastic graphic and superb sound, its gameplay is often badly flawed and plotwise is almost laughable in its political naivety and Z-grade writing. But before we get started here is the obligatory information stuff that all reviews must contain by law in case you have never heard of this game before.

A Virus Named TOM is a game that probably needs no introduction, but here is one anyway. It was released in 1999 by Konami on the Playstation and updated into three dimensions the adventures of Solid Snake a covert operative from the group Fox Hound. Previous adventures on the NES and MSX were fairly basic but innovative stealth action games were going in with all guns blazing was not the sensible option. The PlayStation incarnation saw Solid Snake being sent to a base in Alaska where former members of Fox Hound have taken control of a huge robot called Metal Gear Rex and its Snakes job to defeat them and return control of Rex. Unusually for such a console style game, it was also released for the PC a year later to a fairly muted reception.

You are supported by various helpful people via a radio in your ear called your Codec. This allows you to ask advice, gain info and save your game. Controls wise you action is viewed from a top down third person viewpoint that can be switched to first person (static) view for looking around in detail. Support items such as infrared goggles, cardboard boxes etc are kept on one side of the screen and weapons such as the Socom and Nikita on the other. One can be assigned to each and as you progress through the game you collect a fearsome arsenal. Each type of weapon is effective against certain Bosses, for example Sniper Wolf needs to be taken out with a sniper rifle, the Nikita Launcher needs to be used versus Liquid Snake and his helicopter. Your main tactic is to sneak about, sneaking everywhere is the key. You rarely need weapons unless you are in a boss battle. The elegant controls give you a wide range of crawling, sliding, ducking options.

The graphics and sound are beautiful on the lowly PlayStation, despite the colour palette being heavy on the greens and greys it was still a stunning achievement from the little grey box. Breath clouds in the cold. However the voice acting is still far superior to most of what has gone before or since. The plot forms a huge part of the game with long discussions and cut scenes cropping up at regular intervals. With its strong anti-war message the game is often preachy and unsubtle in it's ''fighting's bad mmkay'' proletising and considering the overall content of the game one of the rankest pieces of hypocrisy ever to be committed to any medium.

So what’s wrong then? Well lots. For a start, the much vaunted stealth aspects of the game are not as original as many would have you believe. the first NES games may have included stealth elements for the first time in gaming but the way they have been implemented in AVNT are much more reminiscent of N64 game Goldeneye and the superb ninja stealth game Tenchu. But whereas in those games enemies could spot you from a great distance and if a surveillance camera spied you, it was pretty much mission over, in AVNT its just plain dumb. For example if you are spotted by a camera or guard you only have to avoid them for about ten seconds before they get bored and go back to patrolling. EH??? And for some reason these genetically modified genome soldiers can only see ten feet in front of them. Stay out of range using your handy radar and you can run right in front of them and not be seen. Ridiculous.

In the same vein, the super bad bosses who are so much tougher than you, all seem to have very low IQs. They happily pause and show you a weak spot for you to hit, and as you spend four hours wearing their health down, they will refuse to change tactics, which is nice. Its also in a blatant attempt to make the game seem bigger, much backtracking to unlock doors early on in the game using key cards obtained later on. There are also some terrible attempts to introduce postmodernism into videogames. That means a cultural text that acknowledges it is a work of fiction by addressing the reader/viewer/player. In this case, its demanding you remove the controller in a boss fight, having Psycho Mantis read your memory card and Snake referring to the vibration of the controller to sooth his poor, sore arm. This struck me at the time as a rather odd thing to do, when so much of the game is supposedly geared to sucking you into its story. to suddenly bring you up short by yelling ''hey this is a game yah know!'' seems to be very strange and schizophrenic.

Where A Virus Named TOM tries to break new ground is via its storyline. It tries to present itself as quite radical in its condemnation of war, fighting and the effects on the human spirit. Yes, that’s very nice, but the constant whining of Solid Snake about how bad his lot is and how Meryl shouldn't want to be a solider is not great, just grating. Especially when you have a bajillion items to commit all kinds of murder in your possession and can strangle and break guards necks with your bare hands. Also by the end the plot seems have careered off at various bizarre tangents. What started out as an interesting tale about political intrigue and genetic experimentation has turned into some kind of idiotic farce. Every other person turns out to be a traitor, and the great threat turns out to be a big robot that can fire missiles off its shoulders or something equally stupid.

Perhaps its worst fault is its moronic vision of global politics. The world we live in is not ever likely to be threatened by super enhanced terrorists using a giant robot to launch nukes. To even try and present it seriously (with footage from global conflicts and Hiroshima amongst others) is an affront. As we have always been shown, if terrorist want to hurt us they attack out basic freedoms by targeting our transport, leisure and centre's of commerce. What irritates the hell out of me about AVNT and the like is the stultifying effect it has on the minds of players who sink into a kind of apathy about world affairs, always assuming there is a quick and violent solution to the deep, protracted, long-term problems of this sick world we live in.

A Virus Named TOM is a lovely game to look at and makes nice noises. But if you really listen to it and probe what its trying to say you’ll find its nothing more than primary school politics, with a moral message delivered with all the subtlety of a brick in the face. Its stealth-based gameplay is badly flawed and has been done better elsewhere, both before and since. Snake is possibly one of the most tediously self-centred “heroes” ever to appear in a videogame and to cap it all, the villain, Liquid Snake has an English accent(!). Oh Hideo, stick to the Mech games you obviously really want to be making, this Snake needs a mongoose to put it (and us) out of its misery.

탐이라는 이름의 바이러스가 되어서 많은 시스템에 난동을 부린다는 내용의 퍼즐 게임입니다.

이 탐이라는 바이러스가 너무 강력하고 악랄한 바이러스라서 분노한 빌게이츠가 윈도우에 탐색기라는걸 만들어서 길이길이 욕을 먹도록 한 사연은 유명하죠.

게임을 내가 하는가, 게임이 나를 하는가.
그것이 문제로군

This game is well crafted, however the mechanics are more twitch reaction based and less puzzle solving. Since the core goal is to alway solve the tile turning puzzle this becomes frustrating quickly. The developers tried to compensate by allowing the player to automatically skip levels, but this doesn't correct the core problem since the level after the one you skipped has the same problems.

If you have always wanted a twitch reaction tile puzzle game, this one may be perfect for you. Otherwise you may lose interest quickly, as I did.

Wow. I was really surprised at how unfun the gameplay actually was. Mixing up several different gaming styles – contemplative puzzling, timers and fast-paced enemy avoidance – apparently didn't pan out that well in this case.

The gameplay's two major inspirations would appear to be Qix and Pipe Mania (or the hacking puzzle in Bioshock, shudder). Instead of drawing lines like in Qix, you navigate a grid of Pipe Mania -type puzzle parts and manually rotate them one at a time while avoiding enemies.

I kind of want to like Tom – the writing's amusing and the production's solid. However, the core gameplay just isn't fun.

Imagine the hacking minigame from Bioshock, except that you rotate existing tiles instead of placing existing ones. Also imagine that you control Frogger, who hand-rotates these tiles while listening to techno and dodging traffic on a highway.

If you dismiss indie games as being EITHER fast, tough-as-nails platformers OR artsy atmospheric environments, I highly encourage you to give this game a shot - this is a fine example of original gameplay that requires split-second precision and risk/reward decision making. I had beaten (not gold-medalled) the single-player campaign in about 4 hours, but don't take that as a knock against the game - I preferred to play in 10-minute intervals to give my nerves a chance to recover from the frantic pace, and I haven't played much of the other modes yet.

The soundtrack by Ian Hicks is extremely well done - 7 tracks that nicely complement the setting and gameplay that are well worth purchasing and adding to your mp3 player. The 8th, which is used in the trailer, feels out of place and I've removed it from my playlist. Recommended.

Speed and precision required: Yes

Straightforward 100%: No

Soundtrack format: DLC, mp3

A Virus Named TOM is not a bad game, but the game mechanics and controls don't make this all that fun to play. It really needs a more intuitive method to rotate blocks maybe by using the left/right triggers or bumpers.

A brief explanation of the game: you're a virus trying to infect systems. To do that you have to redirect power through the system. You just have to rotate tiles till they form a path from the power source to your objective. Had a pretty good start but I just got bored about 3/4 of the way into the game. Doesn't know its identity, whether it wants to be a strategy game, or an action game, or both. Mechanics are sort of just all over the place. At some point it just becomes memorizing tiles. Pretty boring after a while.

This game... it has no clue what it's trying to be. There's no difficulty curve, you'll have random hard levels mixed in with middling ones. You go straight from a pure-puzzle stage to a pure-action one and there's major whiplash. Some levels require memorization as pieces are hidden, which only makes things more tedious. Controls need work too, TOM is not always responsive to slightly early arrow presses which can lead to you coming to a dead stop when you meant to move right and often even a fraction of a second can get you killed. Also, the death penalty is incredibly steep and if you're going for a gold score you might as well restart if you die even once. Which wouldn't be a problem except in levels with enemies all over the place and avoiding dying is the only real goal of the level. This game is just simply unfun to play, the art's nice, the music's alright though a bit dull after a while, but just playing this game is a chore. I couldn't even find it in myself to finish the game, I was just having that little enjoyment playing it. I'm sure there's an audience for this kind of game somewhere but it isn't me and I don't think most of the crowd that would want to play this from how it looks would be in that audience. I only got this through the humble bundle which is about the only place I'd recommend getting it from, really.