Liquid Electronics actually comes up as “Liquid E” on my device. I realize that this may seem like a silly thing to say, but it seems to be a recommendation. In a nut shell, you would have to be on drugs to enjoy this game. This iOS game is actually five variations of one game, but none of them are all that fun.
The basic point of the game is to guide blue liquid to reach markers scattered throughout the board. As said before, there are five different modes with this same formula. “Light Tag” has you guiding the liquid to a lighted marker on screen. It does not matter if you hit a marker that is not lit up, but the illuminated marker will move around quite a lot. You have to hit a certain number of lights to clear the level, and that number increases with every level. Like most of the modes in this game, there is a time limit so it can be a rush most of the time to get there.
This brings us to our first flaw in the game. The liquid is very slow moving. It is almost infuriating to run out of time because you had to tilt your iPod (a lot of the times so you can not see the screen) , only to have it move as slow as molasses in a snow storm. Perhaps it should have been called “Molasses Electronics”, so then lack of speed would have made more sense.
The rest of the games are pretty simple variations of “Light Tag”. “Splitter” has you splitting the liquid, to try and cover the green flashing lights. If a liquid blob splits, you have to control both pieces of it which will also help you cover more lights. “Sound Match” is an interesting take on a matching game. You have to match the sounds, several times in a row. The annoying thing about it is that it does not save the sounds you did match. You have to do them in a row or it starts you off at the beginning. “Obey Commands” is basically the same thing as the others, except you are playing a very different version of “Simon Says”. If you have not played that before, you have to touch the liquid on the lit up lights in order of which ones flash.
Last but not least is “Splitter Extreme”. It follows the same rules as “Splitter”, but now you will be splitting the liquid multiple times. Things get tricky as you try to control multiple blobs of liquid around the board. Instruction for the game is confusing. In “How to Play”, it tells you that you move the liquid with the accelerometer. I frantically searched the game board, and even my iPod for an accelerometer. I figured it out when I tilted the screen. Oh of course, the screen tilt is this magical control mode. The common individual would probably not know that the “accelerometer” is a built in device in iOS devices that determines where, when, and how fast to move. Telling me to tilt the game would have been a less flashy, but still somehow more helpful thing to say. Besides the slowness of the actual liquid, and the fact that you have to sometimes tilt your screen so you are peering over the edge at an impossible angle, there is one more flaw.
The sound, dear god, the sound. There’s nothing that wrong with the background music, although it is nothing special, because it is essentially just quiet puzzley music. The problem is the proclaimation of every word that pops up on screen during the game. The voice is somewhere in the range of a cheesy fighting or driving arcade game (the ones in actual arcades). Having that shouted at you when you pause the game, start the game, or finish the level will quickly make you put the game down for a while. Mute would be a decent sound level for this game. Overall, would be worth the price if improvements were made, but in it’s current form it could not justify a purchase.
