Enigmo
Review
Like Beer Pong but better
by Kiran Sury
reviewed on PS3
Feel Free to Cross the Streams
The developers tried to mix things up by having you guide up to three different liquid sources at once (water, lava and oil), but they might as well have been blue, red and green water. All the liquids move exactly the same way, so the differences are purely cosmetic. If they had interacted with each other a la Pixeljunk Shooter, Enigmo would have been much more interesting and challenging.
As it is, the developers add obstacles such as gates that only open if a corresponding ring has water poured through it, switches you need to hit to activate more streams, and walls made of sponge that completely absorb any liquid and halt its progress. Unfortunately, as the levels grow larger and more complex the zoomed in perspective is too small to show everything at once. This isn’t a problem when you can press a button to zoom out and show everything. But when you select an item the game automatically zooms in on it, and you can’t zoom out while manipulating it. This leads to situations where you have water ricocheting off a pad to a pad above it, but the distance is so great that you can’t see the second pad and don’t know where to aim the water. You have to place the pad, zoom out, adjust the pad, zoom out again, and so on until you finally get it right.
With water manipulation as specific as this, it is a pity the developers didn’t include a more accurate method of manipulating objects. You can place them anywhere with the left analog stick, which is fine, but you rotate them with the L and R bumpers, which is not. Enigmo sometimes demands very precise angles, and it can be frustrating to rotate too far to the left, then too far to the right, until you finally reach the central angle. The right analog stick, which is completely unused, would have solved this problem and lent the degree of accuracy needed.
It is even more important to note that the sound in Enigmo is absolutely terrible. There’s just no way around it – it sucks. There is some vague ambient music, but the developers made the poor decision to make a tapping sound every time a droplet hits a surface. I suppose the sound is supposed to represent the plop water makes, but it sounds like someone is tapping a pencil on a desk. Remember, the sound plays every time a droplet hits a surface. The entire game is built off hundreds of droplets bouncing around, and any background music is soon drowned out by the sound of tapping. Luckily, there is a quick fix: mute your TV, put on your headphones and turn on your mp3 player.
It’s fun
If you like puzzle games, Enigmo is worth checking out. It is like the old PC game The Incredible Machine Contraptions, just not as in-depth. While that game had ropes that burned, pulleys that turned and motors that rumbled, Enigmo has water that bounces. It is not that hard, so experts might want more of a challenge. And it isn’t that varied, so hardcore puzzlers might find their interest waning rather quickly. It also could have better sound, better mechanics, better controls – but Enigmo is fun, and that’s what counts. There are far worse ways to spend four dollars.
6.5
fun score
Pros
Low price, decent fun.
Cons
Terrible sound, imprecise controls, one-note gameplay.
