Colossatron: A New (and Destructive) Twist on the Classic Match-Three Game
The thirteen year-old version of me loves this game. And I have to confess, the older me loves it as well. Colossatron is a game that I picked up over the weekend, and found myself going back to several times, throughout the course of the day.
You play the game as Colossatron, a large machine of destruction that arrived from outer space. Your goal is pretty straight-forward: blow everything up, and don’t get blown up yourself. The main backdrop of all this destruction is shown as though it were a newscast, and the main “enemy” of the game is the world’s military leader – a guy named “General Mustache.” So hopefully that gives you a good sense of the tone of the game.
During the game, smaller components drift onto the screen, which you can then maneuver into Colossatron’s snake-like body. As a variation on the match-three concept, if you match three components of similar color… they will combine and form a larger (and more powerful) component. Three reds creates a larger red component, and so on.
But in an interesting twist, certain color combinations (when placed next to one another) will create newer colors. The variations are: red + blue = purple, red + yellow = orange, and yellow + blue = green. Needless to say, as the game increases with difficulty, matching up everything in a strategic order becomes more difficult.
As a side note – the way that these concepts are introduced is actually really well done, and demonstrated in a very intuitive way (I was impressed how the game got this concept across, without a lot of verbose text).
Between levels, there are the normal repair and power-up opportunities, allowing you to increase Colossatron’s abilities for the next level. All in all, I’d say there’s a good solid 45 – 60 minutes of gameplay, and the entire game itself is very repeatable.
While you can play this game on your mobile device, I’d say it’s much better experienced on a tablet. Also… the sound effects are worthwhile if you’re used to playing with the sound off (though the newscasters kind of get on your nerves after a while).
My one complaint is that at the later stages of the game, sometime there’s so much going on on the screen that it becomes nearly impossible to really “do” anything. There are so many components and enemies on the screen, you kind of resort to the iPhone/iPad equivalent of button-mashing.
But the game overall is very satisfying, and it’s easy to pick up and jump into a quick level for 3-4 minutes. The hard part is putting the game back down again, without saying “just one more, and then I’m done.”
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Thanks for the recommendation. This is the first game since Dots that i’ve been addicted to, and the first one since i switched over to Android. I’ve been playing on my phone which makes for VERY crowded game-play but it’s still interesting. The one exception is the last half of any capitol which basically has me swiping all stupid and crossing my fingers.
Ben (February 11, 2014 at 5:30 pm)Glad you’re digging it! I’ve gotten through it twice now, and it’s gotten progressively harder each time. Starting to use a strategy of keeping that Mega-Bomb and using it for bases, just to keep things quicker.
One thing I’m finding myself resorting to is using the “Revive” option, and making sure I start levels with a decently lengthy monster. So far, I’ve been pretty impressed at how much I’ve played this game – very worth the price of the app.
avoision (February 11, 2014 at 5:54 pm)