[b]5/10[/b]
Clever Puzzles and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Implementation.
[b]What is it:[/b] A 3D action-puzzle game, in which you play as a boy trying to trap the evil aliens that destroyed Venice. Of course, as a young human from a country where kids don't usually receive guns as birthday presents, you're no match in direct combat against the aliens with their powerful laser weapons, so instead you have to lure them onto sewer manholes. Your only weapon is an infinite supply of tomatoes which you can use both as a distraction and as heavy objects that can push buttons. As a secondary objective, you must also collect the 3 bells scattered throughout the level, and as a third objective, you must also find the well hidden bonus. And why not a fourth objective, maximize your score by being fast and not using too many tomatoes.
So, the game is mainly action, you have to lure the monsters to come after you, yet you must always run away so they don't catch you. There's some thinking involved too, figuring out the proper path through the labyrinthine streets, and keeping the monsters away from the bells, which break if a monster comes too close before you can collect them. But my favorite part is finding the bonus in the harder levels. Well, sometimes it's as easy as spotting a thingy in a corner and going to it, but other times it's behind a clever puzzle within the level, like figuring out the right order of the color bubbles to pop (and first figuring out that you need to pop those bubbles), or throwing tomatoes through glowing windows, or cooking tomatoes in colorful fires while running away from a lava monster that always knows where you are.
This all sounds good, so why the low grade? Because these clever puzzles are in one of the worst games I ever played! This is an iPad game, ported with no thought into what makes a good PC game. Everything is done with mouse (as a poor substitute for a finger) clicks and drags. Absolutely no settings, not even an exit button, no mid-level saving, super frustrating controls, very buggy, weird animations, often unskippable events. Shall I go into more details?
You click on the spot you want to go. Quite often, the character fumbles around a bit before he starts going, and while he's going someplace, you cannot click on a different spot to change course. He always goes the shortest way, and if that happens to be through a trap, you die and reset the whole level. Or if there are multiple ways to a point, and you thought he'll go one way, ahead of the monsters, you might be surprised and find out the shortest way is actually back, toward the monsters, you died, start from the beginning. You also use the mouse to move the camera around and throw tomatoes, and it's easy to do one when you wanted to do the other one, and given the very short time you have to act, if you happen to misclick and move the camera instead of throwing a tomato, you're dead, start from the beginning. Aiming tomatoes is weird too, you don't choose where to throw it, but like in Angry Birds, you pull back like a slingshot, except that you control a 3D trajectory on a 2D screen, so aiming takes a couple of seconds of trying to convince the game you don't want to aim higher, but shorter. And you cannot cancel a throw, and you're being scored on how few tomatoes you used, and a misthrown tomato can alert a monster, guess what, you're dead, back to the start! "Solving" the puzzle takes less than a minute, actually being able to finish it often takes tens or hundreds of tries because every thing you're trying to do is actively thwarted by the game. I expected a cleverer kind of Commandos without guns, but I got worse than Flappy Bird instead.
Outside playing an actual level, the game is "so beautiful", it showers you with animations for everything. Click on a button, watch how beautifully first it shakes, then it bangs, then it rotates, then it flies away, then the next thing flows in. Finished the level? Let's watch the kid dance for a bit, then let's slowly show how well you did, giving points for the different things you did, then adding up your current score, then the best score, then the total score, then popping in the buttons, then click a button, and finally after what feels like a minute, you actually get access to the Replay button, which is what you really wanted because the monster accidentally fell in the trap while you were trying to get the last bell. You're done with this level? Let's watch the boy dance while a boat magically appears from underground, and it flies away, and up to the next island, and let's watch a 3D flying tour of the level, then watch the boat slowly land, and after another minute you can actually play the next level. Sure, a few of these animations can be skipped, but most of them can't. and together with the slow movement pace and slow reaction time, the game is soooooo sloooooow! I want my "impatient player" settings!
Should I mention the bad audio, bad animations, and the many bugs I encountered? Nah, I'm bored, and you probably stopped reading a long time ago too, didn't you?
[b]How hard is it:[/b] OK puzzles, frustrating control, often hard secrets.
[b]How long is it:[/b] 31 Levels, and depending on how much you want to perfect the game, you could spend many tens of hours trying to get a perfect run on each level. You can either unlock levels one by one, or have all of them unlocked from the start.
[b]Level design:[/b] OK.
[b]Quality:[/b] Other than some good puzzles, everything is terrible. Incredibly bad interaction, no settings, no achievements, no cloud saving, weird animations, bugs bugs bugs.
[b]Worth the price:[/b] For the puzzles, yes, but for how much you'll "enjoy" the game, no.
[b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] Finding the secrets.
[b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] Very bad Interaction.
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