RUSH (PC) Review

Story: There is no story in Rush. It is a pure puzzle game, and because of this, I felt that a story was not needed.


Gameplay: RUSH is a very difficult game, almost too difficult.
The player's goal is to navigate rolling blocks to their designated endpoints by placing tiles that direct the blocks in different ways. Sounds simple right? Wrong. When placing different tiles adjacently, the outcome can be a mystery. I often found myself studying my tile layouts for minutes trying to figure out what would exactly happen once the blocks began to roll. I still don't understand why some tiles behaved the way they did. Adding to the difficulty are frustrating camera angles. The player has full control of the camera, but is unable to zoom in and out. This is a problem because it can be difficult to fit a puzzle completely on the screen. Also, it can be difficult to see inside enclosed parts of a puzzle. There is a huge inconsistency in the speed of the moving blocks. This wouldn't be a problem, but once the solution to the puzzle is found, the player must sit and wait for the slow-moving blocks to reach their destination. There is no ability to fast-forward. The game does offer an extremely helpful hint system, and even after using hints, the later levels can still be a challenge. RUSH does a good job at preventing the player from becoming accustomed to any one type of puzzle by offering a large variety of puzzle types. The actual act of placing tiles is very easy and is as simple as a mouse click. It is appreciated that the controls don't add to the difficulty of the game.


Graphics: RUSH employs a sterile, almost gourmet, graphical style. Each puzzle seems like it takes place in block heaven. The surroundings consisted of ethereal backgrounds with colorful blocks floating around the puzzle. I enjoyed the clean look; however, each puzzle had the same look, the same background, and as a result I started to get tired of the look of the game by the end.


Audio: The music in the game is very well done. There were quite a few tracks that I would listen to just as stand-alone music. Music does start to repeat towards the end of the game, but it seems the developer, Two Tribes, tried to change up the music slightly by including different versions of the songs in the game.


Replayability: There are a lot of puzzles in this game. I do wish there were a few more that were of medium difficulty though. The developer has said that there will be additional puzzles to be released in the future, so the already lengthy puzzle set will be increased. All this assumes, you do not use hints to get through the game as these dramatically shorten the length of the game.


Pros:

• Really good background music.
• Most puzzles are fun.
• Large amount of content to play.
• Variety of puzzle types

Cons:

• Timing based levels are not fun.
• Can be difficult to see the full puzzle.
• Blocks move very slowly.

Editor: Zach Felling

6/10 Solid

Value: Full Price ($5)