Game Reviews

Crossed

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iOS
| Crossed
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Crossed
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iOS
| Crossed

We've matched all kinds of things since Tetris dropped onto the original Game Boy in 1989.

Blocks, hexagons, fruit, balls, runes, animals, weapons. But have any of these various puzzlers matched the purity of Tetris itself? Arguably not.

Crossed goes back to a similar foundation, but arranges its dropping blocks in a cross shape and adds a splash of colour.

Is that enough?

Cross examination

Each cluster of five blocks drops from the top of the screen, shaped like a plus sign. The only thing that varies is the colours of those constituent blocks.

By tapping the screen you can rotate those blocks through 90-degree angles. Swiping left and right nudges the blocks over in that direction.

Once the blocks hit the floor - or the blocks that have already settled - gravity takes over and they split to fit the underlying landscape.

It's certainly a different way of tackling a familiar template, but the result is a little too uniform for its own good.

Under the cross bar

Crossed just doesn't develop or grow enough beyond this solid foundation. Cross shape or not, you're still matching clusters of three or more, hoping to get larger matches so as to create power-ups and initiate chain reactions.

It's the same match-three gameplay we've been experiencing for decades - just a little less instinctive.

The added complexity of having five blocks in an unusual configuration and then settling them into place makes the planning process just a little too opaque for its own good.

You find yourself forming obvious matches and only setting up vague, general patterns in a hopeful bid for chain reactions further down the line.

There's also a lack of variety to the game - you just keep matching until you hit the prescribed level target, then move on.

All in all, Crossed builds a solid foundation for a new block-dropping game, but it fails to even approach the heights of the genre's best.

Crossed

A perfectly adequate match-three puzzler that fails to add much to the genre beyond a different default block formation
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.