Also available on OSX and Windows RUSH is a game that stylistically is extremely similar to EDGE but with radically different gameplay. It's another game by Two Tribes who have several games on the Wii U eShop (including EDGE) ranging from pretty good to great. RUSH was originally developed as a PC game that relies heavily on mouse control, but given the use of the touchscreen on the Wii U gamepad, it made the transition to Nintendo's ill-fated console extremely well. Whereas EDGE was a puzzle platformer that involved getting a cube through various and increasingly difficult obstacles to read a goal point, RUSH flips that formula on its head; you have to place a set number of directional tiles in the right places to make sure that each cube gets to the goal point of its corresponding color without colliding with any other cubes. The game's levels are broken into categories - "Easy," "Medium," "Hard," and some ultra hard levels that you unlock after finish the others that serve as a sort of "boss" set. As you might expect, the Easy levels are extremely easy, the Medium levels take some time, though, and trial-and-error but are totally doable, but the Hard levels can get REALLY convoluted (but in a good way). The super hard levels are just brutal. Throughout the game, you'll have to learn to use ten different tiles; four change the cube's direction to the four cardinal directions, four slide the cube up/over/down one space while maintaining movement in its original direction afterwards, one makes the cube pause for a moment, and one is a sort of splitter that sends cubes alternating right and left. It's all very straightforward at first, but those last two - the pause and splitter - make things REALLY confusing in the latter levels. RUSH is a perfect puzzle game for folks who want a casual game that really makes them think logically and that they can just pick up and play for a few minutes here or there without needing a major time commitment. Its visual design is very simplistic, but the use of bright colors against largely white backgrounds keeps things from looking dull, and the use of a 3D puzzle field gives it a depth that a lot of cheap indie puzzle games lack. It certainly gets frustrating in the latter levels, but the game does feature a hint function that shows you what spaces should have a tile of some kind and will show you if a placed tile is in the correct spot or not. I tried to use those as sparingly as I could, but I definitely had to resort to it a couple times in the last dozen or so levels. This is a great game for mental exercise, though. My Rating - A |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
|