Polarium (Nintendo DS, 2005)

A lot of the reviews for Polarium were bad, so I was skeptical when I bought it (for a low price-thank you eBay!), but it was surprisingly not too bad. I thought it was only a solve the puzzle and go on to the next level where you solve another puzzle and unless you can solve each level, you can't go on to the next (side note-for these kind of puzzles, you should never have to solve each level to try another one...sometimes your brain just gets stuck on one and you can't wrap your mind around the solution). Anyway, yes it does have a mode like that. But there's also a neat Tetris-like mode, where whole lines fall from the sky and you've got to turn lines into solid blocks of color before the screen fills. That is a neat game and totally worth the money for that mode, even if you never play the puzzle mode. When I put Polarium in my DS, I try to solve 1 or 2 puzzles, then I switch over to the other mode and Tetris away until I get bored or my hands hurt. So if you like puzzle games, Polarium is a good addition to your repertoire. It's very different from Tetris, but still good in it's own way. Plus, it's a game that totally takes advantage of the touch screen and the dual screens. When you're in puzzle mode, it shows your last attempt at a solution on the top screen-VERY helpful! I love being able to see how I screwed up last time...it cuts down on the number of attempts to solve each puzzle. But mostly I play Polarium because the touch screen is fun. I wish my laptop had a touchscreen instead of the dinky laptop mouse.

This is a great buy for any puzzle lover! Polarium will cause you to spend hours beating your own high scores and is extremely addictive.

The premise is simple: Flip the tiles in the monochromatic patterns to create solid areas of white or black, clearing the board in the process. Don't get too excited though; another round of tiles is falling in place!

It's easy to learn, but difficult to master!

This game seems like a good concept. a little bit like othello, you get a grid of black and white tiles. with the stylus, you draw lines, any shape, onto the grid, and each tile you pass over flips to its opposite color. the point is to flip the pieces to get horizontal lines on the grid to be all the same color, so that they can dissappear and the lines above them drop down, like tetris, and to do it in as few moves as possible. all the while, more tiles fall down. its a game that would be impossible without a touchscreen, and is perfect for the DS.

...except its got horrible programming. first, there is basically no graphics, which is fine by itself-what do you really need fancy graphics for on a game like this? the only fanciness going on is this silly little...sparkling...animation when you finish drawing your line/horizontal lines dissappear. again, this isn't a problem by itself, but the simple animation presumably takes up so much memory that the game can't handle doing anything else while the tiles are sparkling and being whisked away to the polarium netherworlds. well, nothing except drop more lines down. like tetris, the tiles drop faster and faster, but as you wait for the stupid animation to complete itself so you can draw your next line, it gets to be impossible to keep up. and if you do try to draw your next line before the animation is complete, then after that sparkling is over, your new line will start off on the wrong horizontal line, and as far as i've been able to try there is nothing you can do to "restart" that line-- you just gotta start off on the wrong part of the grid and try to work around that.

there are multiple game modes, and its the non-timed modes that are the only redeeming parts. there's a 100 level puzzle mode, wherein you have to figure out how to turn all tiles the same color on a grin in one motion. there's also a couple of multiplayer modes.
still, it is a neat concept. if they ever come out with an updated version of this that's capable of thinking as fast as a person, i'll probably buy it, but i would recommend avoiding this one.

If Othello and Tetris had offspring the result would without a doubt be Polarium. You use the touch screen and stylus to change the colors of tiles in a line from black to white or vise versa. When all the tiles in a row are the same color -POOF- the line vanishes. The idea behind the puzzle mode is to clear the stage in as few strokes as possible, while the freeplay mode has more rows of tiles falling while you're trying to clear the lower rows. It can at times be challenging, but sometimes easy enough for kids to try their hands at puzzle solving. All in all I'd say good for adults and kids alike.

I love puzzles in general. I like Rush Hour Traffic Jam puzzle (a board game where you try to get your car through traffic) as it makes you think of moves. Polarium is like that. A thinking game. No timer. Just strategies. This game reminds me of Othello where you have to flip the tiles to get all in one color. That's basically it.

You try to flip tiles in one move to get all in one color then you move on to the next level. Real cute. I enjoyed it. Then there's another game where you have to beat the time. Flip tiles, clear, next one comes down for you to solve, hurry flip, clear then more and more. That was fun. I haven't done the multi-player one yet. I'm sure that makes it fun competing with someone, seeing if you can solve it first.

The graphics are okay. Not colorful or great but it does the job. Glad I bought it. It's a good addition to your puzzle collection.