Polarium Review

Polarium is a great blast of monochromatic fun brought to the Nintendo DS. Though the concept of gameplay may seem simple, the black and white tiles can become as intriguing and complicating as Tetris.

Gameplay 10/10

The single-player gameplay for each mode is simple, ranging from a Tetris esque style named Challenge Mode, to a ranging difficulty style named Puzzle Mode.

The basics of the gameplay are simple. You want to clear all the black or white tiles by making them the same color horizontally. In Puzzle Mode, you have to do this in one stroke, by dragging the stylus across the tiles you want to flip. It also helps to use one stroke in Challenge Mode as well, because you can clear more tiles this way. There's a grey shaded area around the outside of the playing field that you can use to an advantage. Although you cannot overlap your current line, you can backtrack to cover any mistakes you have made. dirt bike games

In Challenge mode, the objective is to change tiles to all white or black horizontally, while having more tiles fall from the top. During the beginning stages, the tiles fall in very simple patterns, but as you progress after clearing every hundred tiles, the patterns become vigorously challenging. The quicker you clear tiles, the faster they begin to fall. If they reach the red line at the top of the playing field, the game is over. But there is no need to fret, because the Practice Mode lets you play to your hearts content. After your game ends, you can draw a small Avatar to complement your High Score. long distance movers

Puzzle Mode has the same objective, except you are not pressed for time. This is where the grey area becomes the most useful, because a lot of the puzzles will require use of it. After you beat 10 puzzles in a row, the next 10 are unlocked. Some may seem hard, others may seem simple. But once around the 50's-60's, the game will become relentless. Also, you will gain hints at where to begin and end your line after you wait a certain amount of time.

There's also an Edit Mode, where you can create your own puzzles for others to play, even if they are not around you to play Wireless Multi-Player. How is this possible? Through Password Generation, which has been seen in many games before. After you create a puzzle, It generates a 30 number password, which you can send away to other Polarium users so that they can rack their brains at your monstrous creations. You can play theirs as well by entering their passwords.

Graphics 9/10

The game doesn't excell in graphics, but what would you expect from a puzzle game? It has nice, fluid animations for flipping tiles, and clearing a puzzle. Everything moves smoothly with the flow of the game so there are no complaints here.

Sound 8/10

The games soundtrack is very... catchy to say the least. I hear myself at work humming the 3 or so tracks from the game. The sound effects are very good and the sound clarity is high quality as well. Although the sound for dragging the line is kind of irritating, it can easily be toned out from concentrating.

Multiplayer 10/10

Polarium features both single and multi card multiplayer. The download demo version allows another player to try the tutorial and ten of Polariums Puzzle Mode puzzles. On the other hand, Multi-Card allows you to play versus with another player. It plays similar to Challenge Mode, except you have items that will show up on your field. These items range from speeding up the tiles you send to your opponent, keeping your opponent from using the outer frame, or reversing all the colors of your opponents tiles, which makes it very competitive.

Overall 9/10

Polarium is a great pick up if you really want to spend some time on a game. Even if you do manage to clear all 100 puzzles in Puzzle Mode, you still have 1000 lines to clear in Challenge Mode, not to mention different player created puzzles. After all of this monochrome madness, Polarium for the Nintendo DS earns a 9/10.

D*