xbox live indie game reviews

PercussONE is a bit different than your average match-3 game. As you would expect, tiles are arrayed on a grid and your main motivation is to line up three tiles of the same style. Your "cursor" can swap any two tiles on the board (either horizontally or vertically), but it has the added ability to flip the currently selected tiles over. All tiles are double-sided, and the "backs" of the tiles are consistent (meaning if purple and yellow are matched, you're always going to get purple when you flip over a yellow tile). New tiles come up from "underneath" the tiles you clear, and you've got a brief instant to rearrange the top-level tiles so that the incoming tiles set off a chain.

The flipping mechanic is a great idea on paper, but a combination of other problems limit its usefulness. PercussONE shows a fantastic level of polish in most areas--a slick UI, great music (actually available as a download at the developer's website), slightly awkward controls--but the most important part, the game tiles themselves, are just terrible. There are three skins to choose from, but two of them ("techno" and "jazz") are almost unplayable. Even for the simplest skin, "classical", there's just too much going on. They read okay on the lowest difficulty (only four possible tiles), but on higher difficulties you often get tiles that have the same colors but subtly different shapes. A match-3 game is an exercise in frustration where you can't visually discern whether or not the tiles actually match (before even maneuvering them into place).

The similarities in color/shape arise from the need to have twice as many tiles as a "normal" match-3 game (the usual number of tiles, then doubled for the back sides).  On the lower difficulties (where I could actually tell the pieces apart pretty well), there just isn't enough diversity on the board that I ever really needed to flip the tiles over--I could always just grab one from a space or two away. On the higher difficulties, not only did I have a hard time telling tiles apart--I also had way too much to remember in terms of which colors were on the backs of the other colors (a key on the side of the screen would've been valuable).

The other way to increase difficulty is to expand the size of the playfield (from 5x5 to 7x7 to 9x9). Past the smallest (and easiest) size board, the square tiles start to get really pixelated and rough-looking (especially compared to how nice everything else looks)--and I'm on a very large hi-def screen. This left with the option of playing a game that was really really easy (smallest board and limited tileset) or a game that made my eyes hurt. When presented with those options, it's not hard to choose a third option--don't play the game at all.

Every now and then the board starts spinning for no reason whatsoever, ruining any sense of stability you might've had. Occasionaly these spins will switch you into a "falling-blocks" mode, which I actually enjoyed lot more than the "standard" gameplay... it's a shame you're often forced to play them with the entire board tilted away from you at a 45 degree angle. Unfortunately, the little bursts of "fun" only last for 15 or 20 seconds before the board spins back into its normal gameplay alignment.

I will say that my views of the game have softened a bit since I first played it. When first tested, I only played the multiplayer. With two or three people roaming the same playfield, I just felt like there was way too much happening on screen at once--on top of not being able to make out the pieces. The game was more likable when I went back to it as a single-player experience, but on every difficulty level I had better luck moving my flipper around randomly and just mashing the spin and flip buttons as fast as I could (what I call the "four-year-old test.") A game that is easier when mashing random buttons needs to bake its gameplay a little more. At 200 points, I could forgive a steep learning curve or some slight gameplay flaws or maybe even the graphical issues (though I'm not sure I could forgive all three). At 400 points, though, it's an easy decision: PercussONE just isn't worth the points.