Game Reviews

Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider

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Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider

Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider has the sensibilities of a twitchy arcade shooter, but you never fire a single neon bullet. Instead, you're weaving through and into glowing lines of energy, switching the colour of the atom you're controlling to absorb as much as you can.

Simple controls and a glowing art style make for an experience that's accessible and unique. It's action gaming pared down to movement and change, with a neat thread of risk and reward running through it, and a backbone of hand-eye coordination that slots it into the hardcore stuff-dodging crowd too.

Atomic warfare

The game sees you working you way through the elements of the periodic table, darting around the screen with a single finger as orange and blue streaks of energy slide in from all sides. Tapping another finger anywhere swaps the colour of your atom.

Hit a blue stream when you're blue and you'll absorb it, hit one when you're orange and your energy level will take a beating. Lose all of your energy and it's Game Over. There are electrons - little balls of white light - to nab too. These fill up a meter and once it's full you can dump it into your energy bar.

The gameplay is fast and frantic, with the swirling energy streams coming in tightly packed waves. You'll need nimble fingers to complete some of the levels without taking a hit, and the randomly generated patterns mean no two playthroughs are ever the same.

Later on you can pick up flashing power-ups that let you slow down the encroaching energy stripes, allowing you to take a breath and bash through the ones on screen with ease.

Particle physics

While the core of the game offers a rich experience, the rest of the package is a little thin. There are Game Center leaderboards to climb, and achievements to unlock, but a lack of different modes might appear a little stingy to some.

But this is a minor quibble with a generously packed game that has 118 elements to uncover, as well as a special final one you get to name yourself. Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider is a clever, engrossing arcade flash.

Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider

A well-put-together anti-shooter, Atomic Fusion: Particle Collider is a rich and rewarding experience
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Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.