Ever since I was young, I have liked logic puzzles, thinking games. I even have a nice 15 puzzle that I keep in my desk drawer that I often hand around the room, getting people to scramble it, and then I put it back in order as fast as I can. I feel challenged, and I love the chance to stretch my noodle! (wait… that really sounds wrong) … uhh Noggin! …? Anyway!
I have played so many games, scribbled through plenty of magazines, I have seen most of the puzzle concepts out there. Very few games show me something new, something I have to learn, so I have kind of strayed away from the genre. Every once and a while, a game comes out that really addicts me, and I feel obligated to tell you all about it!
Obulis, not to be mistaken for Obitus, is a physics based puzzle game in which the objective is to get the colored spheres into their respective colored buckets. Players use all kinds of kinetic and gravity based methods to solve over 150 puzzles. It may sound easy, but you will revert to a monkey-like state and make many a neanderthalish sound/motion over Obulis!
The game is attractive in every way! Beautiful flowing backgrounds, life-like and passive foregrounds, and an entrancing soundtrack; you will be immersed in its soothing presentation. It really pulls me in, and makes me want to solve each puzzle! Each world has different locations, all represented in their own theme. As you progress through the world maps, there are locations you can unlock for an even greater challenge; the better you do, the more stars you unlock.
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I like this game because it required me to think, to plan ahead, and then I had to be skilled enough to pull it off without a hitch (even a little bit off, is off). It takes precision, perfection. It is almost an art to play this game. So many times, I would be just a hair off, and it would mess it all up! This game will drive you insane, but you will enjoy it! The best thing is that it is only $4.99! Yeah, 5 bucks! It is a great play, and easily one of the best puzzlers available on Steam.
This game is now strongly rooted in my top five puzzle games; Sokoban, Braid, Tetrisphere, Fire ‘n Ice, and now Obulis, in no particular order. The game is just perfect, I seriously have nothing to complain about! Well, maybe a little bit of DLC, or a level maker would have been nice, but that would all just to be to play this game some more. One thing that I did notice, however, was that the system requirements didn’t seem accurate:
System Requirements
- OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
- Processor: 1.0 GHz Processor
- Memory: 128 MB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX compatible 64 MB graphics card
- DirectX®: 9.0c
- Hard Drive: 50 MB of available hard disk space
- Sound: DirectX compatible audio card
I tried this on a few machines that met these requirements (in fact exceeded them), and the game lagged on the two lower machines (the lowest of them was a P4 3GHz with a 64MB AGP DX9 card and 1GB RAM), I don’t know what the issue was, but it ran fine on the four other machines (all with either on board GPU’s or PCI-e cards). So it could have been a slot bandwith issue, or maybe just the machine’s were faulty (old crap is crappy).
If you like puzzles, then this is a must have. Many games are frustrating, few feel this good!
<in case you were wondering, the game that got booted was Lemmings>
