H.E.X.

H.E.X. is a game in which, unsurprisingly, you deal with hexagons. Your game grid is filled up with them, in different colours and stacked in a honeycomb structure. To win, you need to create a continuous path of tiles that corresponds to a particular colour sequence displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Each level demands that not only do you do this once, but until you have done away with 250 tiles. Thankfully, you don't have to rely solely on sequence matches to chip away at this figure. As you carry on through each level, power-ups begin to appear within select tiles. Activating these can boost your score, eliminating more tiles than you could otherwise.

Granted, the bomb power-up that just gets rid of all hexagons touching the bomb itself is not particularly impressive, but the colour blast power-up, which destroys all hexagons of a similar colour, can be particularly potent.

There are 16 levels in the game's main mode and as you progress the colour chain you need to match slowly makes its way from a measly three hexagons to a hefty eight. New colours are also introduced, starting with three but moving up to six in the hardest levels.

It's a hurried affair, your eyes darting about the screen in hopes of spotting where the pattern starts, then praying that you’ll be able to use a power-up somewhere in the sequence. Once you get half way through the game, the hastiness of it all grows in spite of the fact that the actual time you have increases.

Part of the problem with H.E.X. is that there isn’t a decent combo system. The only bonuses you get are for completing chains quickly and the best you can get from this is a time boost.

A visual combo meter or at least a more explosive incorporation of combos would help H.E.X. significantly. Failing that, at least some achievements to signpost your endless colour chain-making.

The whole thing feels flat, only managing to mount any excitement by waving failure in your face. H.E.X. is reasonably fun, but it really needs a wider selection of modes and some more adventurous game dynamics if it want any chance of competing with the puzzle genre's big hitters.