One of my absolute favorite arcade titles back in the day, and one that continues to be a sort of bar to measure arcade-style twin-stick shooters against was Smash TV. Silly, hyper-violent, and full of bloody action as well as over-the-top bosses it was always a blast even if it was certainly a quarter pumper and a half. Seeing the name and style of Freakout my hopes were raised as I thought there may be some solid elements from that classic to be seen in a new form. Unfortunately, those hopes were unfounded and fell pretty hard. The first problem the game has is a general lack of variety, the mobs you face are just full of too many of the same characters. Shoot, even some palette swapping or something to break it up would be nice. The second is just that the pacing is on the slow side and the attempts to have you move through a story as you’re trying to break out just don’t work very well in the end. Most critically though is that as the action continues to intensify the game’s performance has noticeable issues. I’m no frame rate snob, and things can happen, but the problems here were consistent and annoying enough with some enemy types that are very evasive it really harmed the experience. There are just too many great shooters on the system to recommend this one.