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In a very short period I have encountered two puzzle games that are more challenging than fun.  Like Mr. Driller Drill Spirits, I can't honestly report having any affection for Polarium.  While actually playing Polarium makes my brain churn a little faster to produce the butter that is the hallmark of any game that truly makes me think it sure doesn't feel like fun.

Polarium is an amalgam of various recognizable puzzle games that have come before it, most notably the classic board game Othello and the original Tetris.  The basic task is to flip black and white tiles by creating lines with your stylus to line up like-colored tiles to make them vanish.  The execution differs depending on the mode of play but the core concept remains unchanged.

During Challenge mode, tile sections descend from the top screen (like Tetris) and the bottom tiles have to be obliterated by creating horizontal or vertical lines of like-colored tiles.  Challenge mode is by far the most, uh, challenging because the other main mode is Puzzle, which presents a tiled pattern that has to be wiped out with a single stroke of the stylus.  There is a lot less frustration involved with Puzzle mode because you're not dealing with moving blocks.  Besides multiplayer, the remaining mode is Practice, which is the same as Challgene but extra tiles only descend when you've cleared out enough space (and not at regularly timed intervals).

 

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To say the least, Polarium's presentation is bare bones with any extra whiz-bang apparently being saved for other Nintendo titles.  But puzzle fans aren't really known for raising an outcry when 3D splendor isn't heaped on their favorite titles.  In this case the simplicity works -- if it were any more complicated it wouldn't just be challenging, it would be completely frustrating.

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Maybe my only real complaint is that during Challenge mode there's a half-second delay from the completion of a line of tiles to the time is disappears.  It happened to me often: I would be halfway finished trying to complete another line of tiles when the previous line would vanish resulting in more tiles being brought into play and throwing off my concentration.

Along with the option for custom puzzles, Polarium should suit puzzle fans just fine because it can be a real challenge.  Otherwise, it doesn't have enough to offer casual gamers or haters of the puzzle genre.

- Omni

(May 2, 2005)

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