Equilibrium

Apple and Google. Yoda and the Emperor. Real Madrid and Barcelona. Matter and antimatter. All are instances of mighty forces working in opposition.

It's the latter pairing that Equilibrium concerns itself with. Clubhouse Studios's game tasks you with picking a side and fighting a large-scale battle with every other player for the future of the planet.

Sounds very epic, doesn't it? Cast the setting and stylish online stat-comparing system aside, though, and what you have is a pretty traditional and unassuming physics-puzzler.

Whether you choose Matter or Antimatter at the outset of your game is immaterial. What ensues is the same set of 60 bite-sized physics-based puzzles.

Using the time-honoured Angry Birds method of pulling back and releasing to propel your little positron forward, the idea is to get to the glowing exit point - sorry, the anti-proton - while picking up all of the little energy bursts along the way.

As you progress you're introduced to a number of elements that deflect, divert, and assist your positron's path - all of which are given their own fiction-supporting titles like 'quantum fields' and 'stable anti-atoms'.

In fact, while all this science babble serves Equilibrium's fiction well, it proves to be a hindrance in terms of intuitiveness and presentation. It's all a bit of an abstract way to present a very simple concept, and if anything the in-game visuals fail to carry through the distinctive style of the menus.

These menus guide you through the game's unique selling point. As you complete each level, you're actually contributing to an overall score for your side. You can also see how your country is faring in the war against the other side, what the current world record is for each level, and also what your faction leaders have been saying on Twitter.

It's a neat way to package such a comfortably familiar premise, but it's just that. Packaging. We didn't feel any particular incentive to try harder on a level to contribute to 'the cause,' as there's no real feeling of competitive play within the levels themselves.

Some kind of visual indicator of rival efforts or at least presence would have helped with this.

As it is, Equilibrium is a competent physics-puzzler with a clever premise - but the two sides to this equation never add up to more than the sum of their parts.