Shatter Crash: Sphere of Puzzles
Company: Nakai Entertainment
Shatter Crash looks to be a rather fun, new take on matching-based puzzle games. The core of that new take is that you are trying to match pieces surrounding a sphere in order to expose the inner core of that sphere as much as possible. The idea is pretty simple, really. You have a shape that you try and place on the surface of the sphere, if the tiles that you hit when you place that shape correctly match the shape that you placed, then that tile, and the like ones touching it will be destroyed. The game throws shape after shape at you as you bust your way through layers of the gameboard shell until you get to the glowing-white center of the sphere. From there, it's just a matter of widening the hole until you expose enough of the central sphere to beat the level.
The story that goes along with Shatter Crash is an amusing one where you find yourself helping a program disinfect his mainframe, and then the mainframes of his friends. You do this by going from sphere to sphere, or nodes as they are called, and getting to that core programming so your floating-robotic friend can do his repairs. Each mainframe has several nodes, and even a couple of bonus, optional, levels that will grant you a few rewards. These rewards can come in the way of currency or even special attacks that you can equip and perform. These attacks come in two flavors and each has varying degress of effectiveness depending on the level of the attack. One will cause more surface damage, while the other is a more penetrating attack.
Shatter Crash's different attacks, combined with a couple of different power suits and attachments, can allow the player to adjust the game to their own personal gameplay style. For instance, a player who likes to take his or her time can go for the more defensive abilities that will slow down the system's response time in dealing with you as a threat. Meanwhile, a more aggressive player can suit up with attachments and attacks that allow for deeper penetration into the node's layers, but do nothing against the fact that the node will not only quickly detect you, but even start putting new tiles back in place.
Shatter Crash seems to do a pretty good job of adding complexity to the later gameboards by not only adding more layers over the node's core, but by adding more shapes and laying them out in more intricate and interlocking patterns. This means that levels get harder and harder and you find yourself racing the clock that much more. At this point, Shatter Crash has only three mainframes to work through, and while each one has quite a few nodes to deal with, it won't take too long for a player to work their way to the end. So while you might not want to drop a couple of dollars on it just yet, if you are a fan of puzzle games at all, I would say that Shatter Crash is worth keeping your eye on.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Shatter Crash | iTunes
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