More like hectic?
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| Source // Xbox |
What do you do when the creator of Tetris has a new game? You put it on the hard drive of every Xbox 360 in the land. What do you do when there's a sequel? You slap it on Xbox Live with multiplayer support, because if there's anything that puzzle gamers like, it's competitive puzzling.
I've never heard of Hexic 2. I've rarely ventured onto Xbox Live. But there's a demo of Hexic 2 and it needs to be played, if only to show me what on Earth it is.
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| Source // Xbox |
Fun Times
A good puzzle game is a simple puzzle game at heart. Hexic 2 involves a grid of hexagonal gems that need to be connected in one of three ways before you run out of time, or options, or your opponent blocks you off or sweeps the board.
Your cursor, if you can see it, will rotate three gems in place, in either direction of your choosing, and will keep rotating until it finds a match. A match involves a block of three gems touching each other in a triangle, a straight row of five gems, or an empty hexagon of six gems.
Chain reactions and bonus bits and bobs are your rewards for good gameplay in search of high scores, but I must admit to not getting too far in the demo, which cuts off your gameplay too early for my liking.
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| Source // Xbox |
Frustrations
A number of modes are available for extending your play, including a head to head battle with an opponent on a shared grid, though you're limited to switching gems on your half of it.
While I was slowly spinning away and connecting my gems together, huge chunks of my side of the grid would be completely locked off, presumably as a result of the computers good play. With a rapidly diminishing number of gems to work with, my ability to construct fancier shapes for better rewards and powerups became more and more of a struggle.
Gems were locked off in droves, bombs descended from the top of the grid, even the line separating our halves of the grid shifted, and not in my favour. I was getting demolished on beginner difficulty by rules and, importantly, strategies that I knew nothing about.
Final Word
So I lost, obviously, and that left a sour taste in my mouth regarding Hexic 2. We weren't all good at Tetris the first time out yet grew to love that, but Hexic is a different puzzle entirely. You're required to stop and think a little more about your decisions, but stop and think too long and you'll miss an opportunity or run out of time.
If you compare it against Tetris, it's always going to come out second best, but if you compare it to other match-three games, which this is much closer to, Hexic does come across as one of the more sophisticated, more strategic puzzlers.
But it still, to me, looks a little tacky at the same time. I don't know what it is about gems rather than blocks, but gems always look cheaper. Can you imagine Tetris with gems instead? It'd be horrible. Can I imagine Hexic with blocks? I might even give that game a second chance.
I didn't like Hexic, but I suppose that could change with a few more games, a better understanding of how best to play it and so on. Do I want to do that? Not really. Not urgently, anyway. It's good to be aware of its existence, but I can find more interesting puzzles to occupy my time with.
Maybe Hexic is exactly what you're looking for, in which case enjoy it. I'll likely stick with some other titles instead.
Fun Facts
I joked about it at the top of the post, but Hexic is indeed a combination of hectic and hexagon.
Hexic 2, developed by Carbonated Games, first released in 2007.
Version played: Hexic 2 Demo, Xbox 360, 2007.