If you heart physics-based puzzles, chances are you'll heart this game too. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=19512 I Heart Geeks arrived in my mailbox completely unexpectedly. I was unsure as to exactly what it was. With a name like I Heart Geeks, a physics-based puzzle game wasn't the first thing that came to mind.
The demo included 100 different levels that spanned a few different geek storylines. Basically, the geeks in the game are using their different academic specialties to exact revenge on what appear to be stereotypical jocks. Each level presents players with a challenge; Sometimes it's ensuring a certain object gets to a certain spot, other times players are trying to activate a certain object.
These challenges are accomplished by placing a given set of objects within the game world while it is paused. Upon activation, every item that has a function is set in to motion. Players will need to toggle back and forth between active and paused modes to perfectly position their items to ensure the specified task is completed.
The game is very reminiscent of The Incredible Machine. Depending on which geek's scenario I was in, the concepts used to perform the task varied. The first geek accomplished all tasks through use of gravity. The next one used candles to activate steam engines. The one after that used electricity, and the following geek used lasers. As I progressed, clearly the technology had increased, but so had the challenge level. I played up to around level 65 before giving the game a rest.
The levels present were adequately varied and the challenge level was very even keeled. From what I played, the game's biggest problem was the requirement of extreme precision. In certain levels I needed to place all of the objects on exact pixels in order to achieve the desired outcome. In most cases, finding that perfect spot grew tedious; in a few instances it would reveal a better way of performing the task, but these were few and far between.
The physics were impressive on the DS and there was little-to-no slowdown in nearly all of the levels I played. Considering there were multiple moving objects affecting a variety of objects in the level, at times I was simply dumbfounded that such a task could be accomplished on the DS.
Needless to say, I came away from I Heart Geeks very impressed. I can only hope that from now until its release later this year, SevenOne Intermedia polishes up a few of the more tedious puzzles and resolve the slight, infrequent slowdown seen in the game.
Topic: IMPRESSIONS: I Heart Geeks! (Read 3727 times)
