Crazy Machines: Elements – Review – Xbox 360 (XBLA)

The latest chapter in the Crazy Machines series, marks it’s first foray onto Xbox 360. Crazy Machines: Elements is a puzzle game that places you in the front yard of either an inventor or someone who should be staring on the show Hoarders, and then makes you solve puzzles with Rube Goldberg contraptions.

Story: No evidence of a story is given at all, but judging by the surrounding area of the puzzles It looks like your a hoarder who challenges him or herself with making simple actions happen using over the top contraptions. Feel free to use you own zany stoy line, it helps in the long run.

Gameplay: The gameplay involves manipulating a set amount of objects to fit into a pre-built crazy machine. Once this is done you get to see the fruits of your labor payoff with something like 2 wind up mice kissing or a ball falling into a bucket. Elements play a small part in the machine building adding a little touch of thinking to your process, but its usually something simple such as burning a rope or providing electricity to a light bulb. The controls are pretty solid for moving objects around but the camera controls are just way too over sensitive. Puzzles are very boring and uncreative with a lot of work going into making something minisclue happen. The story mode boasts 100 puzzles in all, with not too much of a challenge. The game does have some greatness to it though. The level editor is a great way to pass time and build your own Rube Goldberg machine without having to junk up your home like a hoarder. Challenge Mode tasks you with creating the whole machine on a limited parts budget.

Graphics/Sound: Crazy Machines: Elements has a very Toy Story like art design. All of the objects are brightly colored and give off a nice computer rendered cartoon feeling. The soundtrack is very uninspired with some generic elevator like music throughout both levels and loading screens.

Overall: I enjoyed Crazy Machines: Elements for the first 20 or so puzzles, but after that the idea just felt stale and uncreative. The level creator helps to breathe some life into the game allowing players to just dilly dally and dream up some wild creations. All in all I guess I just hoped for more then just a digital Rube Goldberg puzzle.

Pros:

• Level creator
• Fun art style

Cons:

• Puzzles are too easy
• Elements are under used and uncreative in their limited use
• Sleep inspiring soundtrack

Score: 4 out of 10

A code was provided from the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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