Lexicon gives DS some Fizz
Rotate your antennae to build energy flow, baby
Finally, a puzzle game that doesn't involve blocks!
Welcome to Fizz, which certainly sounds an interesting concept. What you're faced with is a gameboard consisting of 25 nodes (placed on a five by five grid), each of which has four coloured antennae at its corners.
All you have to do is rotate the nodes with your stylus to align antennae of the same colour diagonally from each other. The more antennae you align, the greater the energy flow you'll be able to generate between the nodes, and as we all know, energy flow means points and prizes.
One significant element of this set-up is the antennae colours are placed randomly at the start of each level, so some situations will be easier to handle than others. But there will also be plenty of environmental challenges to deal with.
In keeping with the game's space setting, expect asteroids and meteorite showers to break up your antennae, and aliens to periodically arrrive to destroy entire nodes. Other problems include magnetic storms and pulsars, which will change the colours of the antennae, and magnetic spheres, which will lock nodes, stopping you rotating them. Sounds like you need an insurance policy; at least you can get special bonus antennae to help out.
So far, so good, but as we've found with too many puzzle games in the recent past (with Gunpey and Trioncube, for instance), you need more than a strong concept to be successful. And it sounds like there'll be plenty of modes to keep Fizz interesting.
There are ten levels, each with its own graphics and music (apparently they're based on the planets in our solar system). Beyond those, single-player options include the standard work your way through the levels mode, infinite play on one level, time-attack and arcade modes, while the four-way adhoc wi-fi multiplayer modes – which enable you to pick to play as various wacky teams such as scientists, marines, and pilots – include versus and co-op options.
Fizz is due for release in November for the very reasonable sum of £20. Well, reasonable unless it's rubbish. Click 'Track It!' to find out when we do.
