Review: I Heart Geeks (DS)

Put on your thinking caps and get ready to take on 100 mind bending physics puzzles in this new release from Atari. Featuring artwork from Marc Ecko this game will have you pulling your hair out, which is both good and bad. In the beginning, you discover a secret “nerd” hideout hidden behind a school locker. In this room you team up with other nerds whose goal is to wreak havoc on the school’s popular “jocks”. In order to carry out your geek crusade you learn to master various tools coming from four different “branches”: the Mechanics branch with things like catapults, springboards, chains, gears and conveyor belts, the Electricity and Magnetism branch including light bulbs, batteries, magnets, wire and power outlets, the Liquid and Gases branch including faucets, steam engines and pipes, the Optics branch with lasers, mirrors and magnifying glasses and finally a Toy Box section with includes many things like balloons, fire crackers, scissors and more.

The goal of each puzzle is to replace and manipulate these various tools in such a way to move an object from point A to point B. If you are successful, that level ends and a new one begins. Each one harder than the next and opening up new “tools” as you go. In amongst the various “levels” you will enter into a boss battles which again involves more of the same but now with the ultimate goal of luring a jock into various precarious positions so you can exact your nerd revenge and embarrass the jocks to no end.

In the beginning I found it somewhat difficult to actually start the game and I found the in-game tutorial and menu system to be a bit hard to navigate.  After you start the game and learn how to utilize the first tools given to you, you make your way through the puzzles by placing the pieces correctly on the screen to complete your task.  In the event you get stuck, and if you are like me, you will be getting stick quite often, there is thankfully a Help button which will show you where to place each item.  The problem with asking for help is you won’t score for that level.  In the end, I found myself not caring much about the score and using the Help function quite a lot.  One issue I had with the help system is even though you can see where to place a particular tool, sometimes it was still hard to place it in the exact spot required to complete the puzzle.  Graphically, this game is quite simple, but adequate.  It seemed to do the bare minimum to get by, but with puzzle style games sometimes this can be overlooked.  In order to control the game, you have to flip  the screen back and forth from the touch screen where you manipulate the items to the top screen where you carry out the experiment.

Obviously, a physics puzzler relies heavily on the actual in game physics.  In this case I found the physics to be somewhat unrealistic.  For example, a ball would bounce off a spring in a very unnatural direction and/or distance.  In the end, it works but sometimes takes serious trial and error, sometimes having to move items a microscopic distance to try and pull off the correct “move”.  If you consider yourself a geek or nerd, and face it, many of you do, you may enjoy this game.  If you are into brain teasers and Rube Goldberg type puzzle solving, this game is for you.  Others of you may want to rent it first.