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By Cronan, October 8, 2009 5:03 am

Planet Delta – Puzzle & Trivia – 80 Points – Download

I hold the green button down, and then release it. The red ball slides up out of the launcher and across and down, into the glass container, towards the far right. It comes to rest on top of a collection of coloured balls, making a group of three reds. The red balls vanish, satisfyingly, and another ball, yellow this time, slides into place in the launcher. Again, I use the green button, but this time I tap it, and the ball ends up in the left side of the container, stranded in a sea of purple and green.

And that’s when it happens. The floor of the container rises, pushing all the balls further up into the container, and I feel a surge of panic. There is now less space, less time to make my decisions. The pace of the music quickens, just by a beat, and my heart-rate quickens with it. Suddenly I don’t feel so confident that I’m going to reach the core.

Planet Delta is Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-A-Move) turned upside down. You match coloured balls to earn points, you use points to buy special balls and other objects to help you finish the harder levels. In some ways this game is like pinball, which adds an extra level of challenge to the basic game – you’re never 100% certain where each ball will end up. At the beginning of each round you’re given a “shadow” that tells you where your ball will end up, but this is taken away as you get further into the game.

Planet Delta isn’t perfect. I picked up a few spelling mistakes, occasionally the ball doesn’t end up where the “shadow” says it will go, and the cartoon at the beginning is a mistake. Poorly executed and coming right at the beginning, it reflects badly on the rest of the game.

But 30 seconds more and you’ve forgotten any previous dodginess. The music is good, adding to the game, without being annoying. The career mode is a good fit, and sees you travelling down through layers of Planet Delta’s crust, trying to get to the core. I haven’t reached it yet, but I don’t expect the trip to end well. The Earth’s core is made of a solid iron-nickel alloy, and is as hot as the surface of the Sun. Maybe the core of Planet Delta is filled with puppies, but I think that’s unlikely. Still, I’m having a great time getting there!

You’ve played games like Planet Delta before. But I’m confident you haven’t played an Indie game in this genre that is quite so well executed. The game is addictive, challenging and just plain old fun to play. The basic game mechanics are solid, and there’s enough variety in game-types and ”special” balls for many hours of playing. And what more could you ask for?

Planet Delta is addictive, challenging and just plain old fun to play.

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By Cronan, October 7, 2009 4:27 am

Bomb Disposal Expert – Puzzle & Trivia – 80 Points – Download

Hollywood has made many war movies over the years, but none has focused so exclusively on addiction to danger than The Hurt Locker. The well-received 2009 film follows a US bomb-disposal team as they move through Baghdad defusing bombs of various types. It’s gripping and powerful, a critique of war and the societies that make war possible.

Imagine then, if the bombs in the film had been like the bombs in the Xbox Live Indie game, Bomb Disposal Expert. Each bomb has four lights, and they flash in a pattern. You tap out that pattern, using your hand-controller. Do that a few times, and you defuse the bomb. Then you move onto another bomb. I didn’t like Simon Says when I was 10 years old, and I like it even less now.

I’m being a little harsh. The game is pretty polished, and it adds a few wrinkles like mirrors and direction changes. There’s an arcade mode, and a career mode, and even support for (sort-of) multi-player. The graphics aren’t badly done, the music is fine, the menus are a bit clunky, but they work. But it’s not enough.

The developers, Evolution Dreams Studio, can definitely do better - watch this space for a forth-coming review of their excellent game Planet Delta. But Bomb Disposal Expert is a one-trick pony, and you see the trick in the first ten seconds. And then you’re done.

The ultimate disappointment? It doesn’t even have animation or sound when the bomb blows up; it has a message box. Bomb Game Fail.

A one-trick pony, and you see the trick in the first ten seconds.