Rumble Box

The Good
In my younger years I used to play a lot of classic games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, and anything where you merely wailed on an opponent until they were defeated. These games kept me occupied, but as time went on, I craved something deeper. But my still-smoldering passion for games like these has recently been renewed through this fascinating, and terribly addicting, game.

In Rumble Box, you play a fighter made out of cubes, squares, and circles, and you are trapped in a square cell surrounded by high walls. Enemies, similar in appearance to yourself but each with a special ability, come quite literally out of the woodwork and try to annihilate you, forcing you to use kicks, punches, and throws to defend yourself.

But that's all the normal stuff. Where Rumble Box breaks away from conventional games of this nature is in your goal. You aren't merely fighting for survival, you're fighting to escape.

Each enemy you kill breaks apart into various shapes, which remain on the playing field, and you have to accumulate enough pieces to climb over the walls of the level.

Yes, you literally climb your defeated enemies to escape.

But you have to do all this before time runs out, making each level a race to build, fight, and stay alive against the numerous attacks of your opponents.

And you do all this amid colorful cel-shaded graphics and a jazzy musical score, leaving both your eyes and your ears happy as you casually wreak havoc among your foes.

The game is also simple enough to learn without ever needing to read any instructions; a simple splash screen of your controls at the start tells you everything you'll need to know.

Oh, and did I mention it's addicting as anything I've played in ages?

The Bad
But all my praise does come with a few annoyances.

For instance, the controls, while being simple, are sometimes unresponsive. This can lead to trouble as you try to maneuver your character through a densely packed room, especially since the game's camera acts like another enemy.

Normally the view works fine, but as soon as the action heats up, you'll find yourself hard-pressed to find your character amid the chaos. This sometimes makes the game unnecessarily frustrating, but it isn't bad enough to destroy the actual gameplay.

Also, though the premise is novel, it can get repetitive quite easily. Playing through levels that look similar while facing endless swarms of enemies that you've seen before, all while attempting to do the same thing you have throughout the entire game can become tedious.

The Bottom Line
Overall, I would say this game achieves exactly what it aims to; create a fun new take on a traditional genre. Though there are some faults, I find that the virtues of this game are simply too high to be ignored, especially since it's free.

Grab it, try it, and see if you too don't become hopelessly addicted to beating your high score, and trying to get past just one more level.