Rathores blog

History has given mankind many great inventors. Alexander Graham Bell revolutionized communication when he invented the telephone. The Wright Brothers paved the way for modern travel with the advent of the airplane. You too will become an engineer with Crazy Machines 2, the new 2D physics puzzler from publisher Viva Media. Unfortunately, much like the game itself, your experiments will often leave you with mixed results.
Crazy Machines 2's gameplay is inspired by Rube Goldberg, an inventor who was fascinated with building complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect ways. The gameplay is nothing new and shares a lot in common with the older Incredible Machine games. Basically, if you've seen the original Back to the Future movie, you might remember the opening scene displaying a wacky and long-winded contraption that, after going through multiple complicated phases, opens up a can of dog food and spills it onto the floor. In Crazy Machines 2, you will be constructing similar devices that will force you to do everything from shooting crossbows at mannequins to frying fish by tuning musical instruments.
Each level starts off by letting you know what to do and gives you items to accomplish your objective. There's usually multiple ways to solve each puzzle. The initial levels are easy, and basically introduce you to the domino effect. As you progress through the game, more items will be added to your inventory, and the puzzles get much more long-winded and challenging. What adds a layer of difficulty to the game is that a lot of the time you will have to manipulate the objects before placing them onto the field. You will have to rotate, mirror, or combine items together in order to accomplish your various tasks. Certain objects will rely on other items to work, i.e. a gas boiler might require connecting pipes to function, a light bulb might need to attach itself to an electrical outlet, and so forth.
Considering Crazy Machines 2 has around 200 items to toy around with, there's a lot to manage. The game doesn't make itself any easier, because much like Goldberg contraptions, some of the puzzles are just too convoluted for their own good. It doesn't help that the puzzle instructions are often poorly worded. The directions manage to say a lot and very little at the same time. Most of the dialogue is worthless back-story that you won't care about, and you'll often be left scratching your head trying to figure out what to do.
Because some of the levels are so confusing, the game gives you the option to use three different kinds of hints. Each level usually gives you two text clues, which generally points you in the right direction. The next cheat allows you to spy on certain sections of the screen, depending on where you click. Finally there's a reveal cheat, otherwise known as the "I give up" button, which allows you to move on to the next stage. You will often be tempted to use these cheats, but using them will lower your laboratory score. However, there are good puzzles in this game, and when you do resist the urge to cheat and beat the level on your own terms, you will feel like a genius.
Even though the gameplay mechanics can get pretty advanced, the presentation is primitive from a design perspective. For whatever reason, the menu takes place in a three dimensionally rendered log cabin; I guess that's where most scientific experiments are conducted? As you boot up the game, you will be introduced to a cartoon inspired Albert Einstein. He will constantly try to have a one-sided conversation with you, but all of his jargon ends up being random and nonsensical. There were some cute ideas with the presentation, but in the end, everything comes off as unpolished and not very cohesive.
The game's graphics are also indicative of good intentions coming up short. Apparently, developer Novitas never heard of the "less is more" approach to design. The game's levels will often feel cluttered and unrefined, which can make things more difficult when you're trying to focus on certain sections. To offset this, the game allows you to zoom in on segments of the levels. However, when you zoom in close, you will notice bad looking textures and horrible aliasing issues. Even with 16x anti-aliasing turned on, the game was extremely jaggy. As you progress through the game you will be treated with different backgrounds. Unfortunately, while the change of scenery was meant to be a good thing, some of 2D backgrounds can be a little distracting. The game would have looked nicer with a cleaner and more pristine aesthetic. As it stands right now, the game looks dated and cheap.