I Heart Geeks! review (DS)

Efficiency be damned. When confronted by a balloon that needs to be popped, you could just squeeze the darn thing until helium bursts forth from an open orifice, but where would the fun be in that? By constructing an elaborate machine complete with candles, conveyor belts, and even electrical switches, you can take the time to give that balloon a proper send-off. I Heart Geeks revels in the concept of building elaborate machines to perform mundane tasks, and the rush you feel when you successfully link seemingly random pieces together to do your bidding taps into the inventor buried deep inside everyone. But that simple pleasure is often displaced by poor help implementation and an assortment of tools that rarely excite the imagination. I Heart Geeks struggles to maintain its puzzling appeal, resulting in a tired exercise in mechanical tomfoolery.

6348432Away, cursed tennis balls! Down to the sweltering abyss from whence ye came.None

In between the puzzle solving that makes up the majority of the experience, I Heart Geeks features a cursory story to explain why you're performing such odd activities in the first place. You follow a group of geeks (an enterprise?) as they try to turn the tables on the bullies who have tormented them through the years. It's a concept that could have been fun to see played out in vignettes if the material were good, but there are few clever ideas to keep you interested in the geeks' rise to overthrow their oppressors. Granted, the plot is only a small aspect of this game, but this lack of creative spark trickles down to every other element. From the bland artistic style and repetitive score to the predictable tools you work with, I Heart Geeks achieves the bare minimum similar games have reached while offering few noteworthy elements to separate it from the pack.

The rules are easy to learn. A set of immovable objects is located on the top screen, and you have to move the items located in your lower screen inventory beside them to solve a conundrum. Inventory items are chosen for you beforehand, and most of the levels are designed so you make use of your entire repertoire, though imaginative tinkering can let you pass with a bit of flair. In the early going, objectives stray toward the easy side to ease you in gracefully. You may have to lay out wooden planks or a spring pad so a ball can reach a box on the other side of the level, and there isn't a time limit rushing you through the process. You can take your time surveying the level, deliberately placing items using the touch screen, and then set things in motion so you can see how the items interact. Make a mistake? It's easy enough to tweak the items you placed, so simple trial and error is enough to solve most puzzles. You're ultimately graded on how quickly you finish each puzzle, but because there's no online integration, you won't be able to see how you rank against the best builders in the world.