"A revolutionary new generation puzzle game with one major flaw."

Logic Machines is a great new generation puzzle game that will force you to use your brain in order to succeed. This game is suitable for all ages, but the challenge may be a bit too much for children. If you want a decent challenge and a whole lot of fun, this game may be for you.

Gameplay/Controls: 9/10

When you begin Logic Machines Adventure Mode, you will be put through a short yet effective tutorial that teaches you all the basic controls you need to know. Basically, before you begin each stage you are given an objective. The most common objectives in the game are trying to knock balls into buckets, popping balloons and knocking over walls. The objectives often get more complex as you progress, but they usually are just variations of the ones I mentioned. In order to complete these objectives you are given a limited amount of materials. Your role is to place these materials effectively to complete the objective. It sounds simple, however a lot of thought must go into placing these materials in order for you to succeed, especially in the later stages.

You will face many materials in this game, each with their own use. The simplest material you will be able to use is a wall. You can rotate these all the way around to enable you to deflect balls off of them in the perfect direction, or use them as bridges for the ball to pass over. Later on, you will get bouncy walls, which make the ball bounce farther than normal. You will also be able to use ropes and weights. More often than not, you will use the rope to tie it to the weight to make a swinging projectile. This is often needed to get a ball rolling for example. Other materials include scissors, balloons, balls, teleporters, fuses, torches, bombs, crossbows, catapults and assorted materials needed to operate devices like conveyor belts, fans and hammers. I will not list the uses of all the materials mentioned above, as figuring it out is half the fun.

The Adventure Mode has 75 stages and all of them are very fun. Many of these stages will really test your skill and force you to think out of the box for different uses for these apparently simple materials. In case you get stuck, you have the ability to skip 5 stages in total. Each stage also has a timer on it, however this timer is only used for earning bonus points. Another way to up the difficulty of the game and earn bonus points is to get the bonus items on each stage. This will often require you to alter your strategy in completing the stage, but sometimes it is worth it. Once you complete a stage, you are given a ranking of either silver or gold. If you get silver, you can replay the stage to try and earn gold. The only benefit for earning all gold is you get an achievement.

Logic Machines has an achievement section that has 16 achievements. These achievements range from achieving gold on all stages in a certain section to completing a stage in less than 10 seconds. Many are easy, but some are just time consuming. As far as I know, the achievements are pointless and you do not get anything extra for completing them all.

Logic Machines also has a Challenge Mode. You unlock certain challenges by progressing though the Adventure Mode. The Challenge Mode is not as fun as the actual Adventure Mode as all you do in all twelve of the challenges is collect as many bonus items as possible.

The controls for this game are very simple and easy to understand. You can zoom-in, out, select which material to use and place it very easily.

Graphics: 6/10

This game doesn't have the best graphics out there, but if you are buying a puzzle game, you should be more focused on gameplay than anything else. They are not bad by any means; they are just not outstanding either.

Sound/Music: 6/10

The music and sound effects in this game are pretty basic. They are nothing special but they get the job done. The music may get a little repetitive, but again, the gameplay is what really makes a good puzzle game.

Difficulty: 7/10

Not unbearable by any means, however this game will offer you a nice challenge. It is almost guaranteed you will hit a wall somewhere in this game, and when you do, you may be tempted to skip that stage. Going for all the achievements would also be an extra challenge that would amp up the difficulty.

Replayability/Completion Time: 1/10

Well, I'm sure you knew something bad was coming. This game virtually has no replayability as once you figure out a puzzle, you don't really want to do it again. The only excuse for doing it again would be to go for a gold rank, and even then each stage would take under a minute, as you know how to complete it. Now, I really don't mind if a game doesn't have much replayability, but this game can be beat easily in one sitting. That's right, this game can be beat in under 6 hours easily. In fact, there's an achievement in the game to beat it in less than 120 minutes. (That would be nearly impossible to do your first play through however.)

Pros
+ Unique and addictive gameplay
+ This game will require you to think out of the box and come up with solutions for complex situations
+ Will provide you with a nice challenge
+ Zoom-in feature which enables you to perfect material locations
+ Often more than one solution to stages

Cons
- Repetitive music
- Often there are ways to complete stages by taking advantage of programming errors
- Horrendous replayability and game length
- Glitch on stage selection screen allowing you to sometimes skip stages
- No create your own puzzle feature. As simple as this would have been to add, they neglected it
- Tutorial not as informative as it could have been. You'll have to find many things out by yourself which probably should have been explained

Is this game for me?

Well, like always, I advise you to watch some gameplay videos before making your final decision. This truly is a very fun and unique puzzle game that had me very entertained. If it wasn't for the extremely low playtime and lack of replayability, I would recommend this game to all puzzle game lovers. That however isn't the case and my advice would probably have to be not to buy this game for more than $20. The amount of playtime you will get from this game just isn't worth any more than that in my opinion.

Overall: 6/10 (not an average)

Well, as unique and fun as this game is, the amount of time you will spend playing it will most likely not justify the cost of the game itself. Unless more features get added to this game in the North American release, it is quite honestly not worth buying at a normal games price. Hopefully you'll be fortunate enough to find this game in a discount bin one day.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/09

Game Release: Logic Machines (EU, 07/10/09)