Puz: Chain Reaction [by Monster Studios]

Game Review: Chain Reaction
Release: December 13, 2002
Genre: Puzzle
Publisher:  Garage Games
Developer: Monster Studios
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/SE/ME/2000/XP, Pentium II® 400, 64 MB RAM, OpenGL compatible graphics card, DirectX 7.0 or greater, DirectX® compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator
Price: US $14.95

The concept of Chain Reaction is simple. Line up things and let them domino until you have accomplished your goal. This game is definitely for those who enjoy enjoyed playing "Mousetrap" as a child. The idea is quite similar. You build a great big contraption with different events such as falling bowling balls and blowing fans that continue the machine forward. The end goal? To move our little blue friend (monster) from his starting spot to a landing pad located somewhere else on the screen.

Doing so often is easier said than done. There are 65 objects available to you to help you complete the goal. Mercifully, most boards only give you the objects you need to succeed, so you won't spend hours trying to figure out what items to use...though you still may spend hours trying to figure out how to align the items in a way that will cause your target to land on his target. Actually, in some cases it is much easier than you might think. The game allows you to place any item anywhere you want. Taking advantage of this, you often can place items in places that may not have been expected by the game's designers...often making levels much easier than they would have otherwise been. My favorite throughout playing the game was dropping items on monster to knock him in places he was supposed to have gone only after a complex alignment of all the items was made. The flip side of this is that you can often get yourself into real trouble trying to make things happen that were not meant to happen.

A tutorial is included with the game to help you understand what the different items in the game do. The tutorial is very useful and helps you understand how to set-up pieces on the playing board so that they will interact with each other. Some items, such as gears, must be carefully placed in order for them to turn the next gear.

In any game like this, a good portion of the fun has to do with the variety of the materials that are available to you to make your contraption. Chain Reaction has come through in this department creating a variety of interesting items for you to play with. Motors, solar panels, and monster in a box are helpful to creating power that other items require in order to function. Some of the items you plug in include fans and vacuums. Of course many motors will not run by themselves, and solar panels do not provide power unless they have a source of energy themselves. Flashlights and candles that are well-placed can help provide the necessary light that the solar panels need in order for them to provide power to other items on the board. Of course, then there is the problem of turning the flashlight on to begin with. A well-placed baseball or game cock can drop down and flip on flashlights or frighten the poor monster in a box to start running in fear, thus providing some needed energy. Items For example, the motor has a gear connected to it, that can have a rubber band connected to it and another item such as a conveyer built thus providing propulsion. Another fun thing to play with is the balloon. It has a chord connected to it that can be connected to a gun or perhaps a bucket, causing the item to react when the balloon attempts to float away off of the screen.

While it can be a lot of fun to try and put the levels together, I got a little frustrated when things didn't consistently work the same way. For example, the trampoline when placed in the correct location will allow monster to bounce up multiple times, each time bouncing higher until it hopefully gets involved in some other section of your master contraption. However, often I found monster not bouncing straight, for one reason or another, and then landing down in such a position that caused him to stop bouncing. While you would hope for consistency in the process, often re-running the contraption without making any changes would produce slightly different results. On two different boards, I ran the final contraption two times and only once passed the level, even though I didn't change a thing. Knowing that things don't always respond the same leads to a level of frustration that seemed to permeate through the game...though I did have a couple of other issues.

Graphics: 7
For some reason the graphics didn't work for me. The game is built in 3D, but much of the graphics are in 2D. Between the two, there is a large number o graphics in the game that don't seem to match. In addition, the text in the game is just horrendous to look at. It is difficult to read and is very pixilated. The backgrounds for the levels themselves are bright and friendly, which helps the overall feel of the game.

Sound: 10
The background music in the game was fantastic. The upbeat tones led me to getting excited each time I started a new level. The sound effects themselves are fine and don't do anything to take away from the game, but I spent so much more time being enthralled by the music, I paid little attention to anything else.

Game Play: 6
While it is helpful that each level limits your options so that you don't waste tons of time trying to figure out what items you should use to pass the level, it also took away greatly from the inventive process. Instead of trying to device my own machine, I found myself stuck just trying to put together their machine. That process for me was not greatly fun and often felt more tedious, especially on levels where it was clear at first glance where each piece would need to go in order for the contraption to work correctly, and all that needed to be done was to move the pieces to their correct places. Ho-hum. I correctly moved everything to where it was supposed to go...do I get to go to the next level now? Some levels were much better, but the limitation on the inventive process left me trying to figure out ways to pass levels that were obviously not what the developer had initially intended. While I certainly appreciate that many players would become more frustrated on their own if they had to figure out their own way of putting together a contraption, giving all the pieces to a player at the beginning of the level, left most of the mental difficulties out of the game, which for me greatly took away from the quality of the playing experience.

Options: 8
The options in the game are sufficient for what the game is, and further enhanced by the ability to create your own levels. It appears that GarageGames is trying hard to get players to trade levels on-line, but it may be some time before a large number of player created levels are done. To those creating levels I make just one plea. Create levels that can be passed in a large number of ways and give me all the equipment you think I might possibly want, but not enough to make it too easy.

Fun: 7
As is fairly clear from this review, I didn't get too jazzed with Chain Reaction. The music kept me playing longer than I might have otherwise. I might suggest a solution guide be made available as you are unable to play any levels until yolu have passed the previous level. This means you could get stuck at level 30 and never get any further in the game, and only have levels you have already solved behind you. Since there really aren't many other ways to pass a level, there is no reason to play past levels, leaving you to one level you are frustrated with and cannot pass, and player-created levels as the only thing you can play.

Concept: 8
While this concept is nothing new, the items given to you are quite inventive. Anyone with any kind of inventive mind will enjoy seeing the many things given to you to create your contraption. Even if they don't get much freedom in creating their own contraption.

Overall: 7
I debated giving the game a 6, but decided that some of the low rating I was giving the game was due to my personal frustrations with what I felt was serious limitations on what I could really do in the game. As mentioned before, I found many of the puzzles to just be tedious exercises of moving objects to their obviously appointed spots, and received no satisfaction when that obvious set-up worked like I had expected it would. Still there are quite a few inventive puzzles in the game that will test your problem solving skills, and I think the fans of the game will defend it as one of the better independent games.Added: June 21st 2003
Reviewer: The Mole
Score:
Related Link: Chain Reaction Website
Hits: 5762
Language: