BioSub

Origin8 have brought us some pretty exciting games in the past, from Monster Kill to Car Mania as well as Sentinel and Sentinel 2. These past games have all been huge hits, so could they get it right another time with a game that is so very different from their past successes?

BioSub is a game where you need to clean the ocean from the nasty chemical spills with your sub which has a protective shield. The gameplay is all controlled with your accelerometer, which turns out to be fairly easy to maneuver. There are optional touch controls if you prefer, but for this game the way it responds, playing with the tilt is ok.

From the opening launch screen, which splashes over with a wave of green water, I was hooked and ready to put in a serious game session. Once you get past the initial control calibrations, you just jump right in, and your first level is a nice easy one to start with. You have to move your sub to make the two red containers hit each other, which makes them both explode and disappear. The level is cleared.

From level two onwards though, it gets a lot more difficult. There are more canisters placed and you have to again bash into each other. As you move your sub you will notice that the edges are not boundaries and your ship goes off the edge and reappears on the other side, as do the canisters. This does make the game pretty confusing and at times you have half canisters on both edges of your screen.

As you progress through the game, if you finish the levels in certain times you get awards. These help you to progress on to the levels and you can see how many awards you need to unlock the next (or higher) levels. As these levels get more difficult the canisters interact with each other if you hit them in the wrong colours. There are different reactions from more canisters being made (No Please No More Canisters!! *feints*) to them helping you.

There are 70 levels for you to work your way through, which means that this game will last for a very long time... good luck getting through them all and unlocking them! The graphics on the game are very polished, and the icon is great too, visually they have done a great job. The sound also does work well with the game so those are clear winners.

For me, the game was just a bit too difficult... so for me it was a bit less fun than it could have been. I think the reason for the difficulty is the timer in the center of the screen. You have 30 seconds on some levels to clear the canisters and it just isn't enough time. It' difficult enough to move as it is so adding the time pressure just makes it really frustrating. I would honestly prefer if they had an option so you could play the game without the time pressure.

Overall it is a good game if you are a patient natured person. I found that the time pressure put me over the edge, especially when I was really close to beating levels and just blew up for no good reason. Because of the crazy amount of time induced stress involved, I don't think that this one is for me.