Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
Sort by
« Previous1Next »
A Machine Not Quite the Sum of its Parts
posted by JMichaud (BETHESDA, MD) Jul 18, 2011
Member since Jan 2008
17 out of 17 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
Many years ago, a game came out on the PC called the Incredible Machine. This game gave players several items like a laser beam, levers, pulleys, and so forth to create contraptions that do oddball things. Things like fire rockets, lead a guy to his home, or smash a fishbowl and have a cat eat the dying fish (yes, you could do that.) It was a great game and a smash hit.
Now comes ThinkSMART Crazy Machines, an attempt to rejuvenate the formula, and it barely misses.
The game gives three game modes – the Play Level, the Sandbox, and the Party Games.
The Play Level has up to 50 levels; each level has you putting the final pieces of a contraption together so it does a certain task or tasks.
The Sandbox lets you create your own contraptions – with a limitation.
And the Party Games has up to 50 mini games where up to three players can compete to see who can grab the most items.
But hold on a second, the game puts heavy limitations on what you can do from the get go. Only 5 of the 50 levels in Play Level, 19 levels in Party Games, and almost no item in the Sandbox are available.
The only way to unlock the material is to play through the levels in Play Level and Party Games – and if you get stuck on one level, too bad; the game won’t help you at all.
Another problem is the description of the items you use; in Incredible Machine, each time you pick up an item, you are given the option of finding out what it’s purpose is. In ThinkSMART, you have to back out to a submenu and find the item in an alphabetical list. This can frustrate players who just want know what something does without having to keep going back to that submenu over and over again.
ThinkSMART Crazy Machines had potential, but all that locked material and lack of help ruin a game that could’ve been the next Incredible Machine. SKIP IT.
Now comes ThinkSMART Crazy Machines, an attempt to rejuvenate the formula, and it barely misses.
The game gives three game modes – the Play Level, the Sandbox, and the Party Games.
The Play Level has up to 50 levels; each level has you putting the final pieces of a contraption together so it does a certain task or tasks.
The Sandbox lets you create your own contraptions – with a limitation.
And the Party Games has up to 50 mini games where up to three players can compete to see who can grab the most items.
But hold on a second, the game puts heavy limitations on what you can do from the get go. Only 5 of the 50 levels in Play Level, 19 levels in Party Games, and almost no item in the Sandbox are available.
The only way to unlock the material is to play through the levels in Play Level and Party Games – and if you get stuck on one level, too bad; the game won’t help you at all.
Another problem is the description of the items you use; in Incredible Machine, each time you pick up an item, you are given the option of finding out what it’s purpose is. In ThinkSMART, you have to back out to a submenu and find the item in an alphabetical list. This can frustrate players who just want know what something does without having to keep going back to that submenu over and over again.
ThinkSMART Crazy Machines had potential, but all that locked material and lack of help ruin a game that could’ve been the next Incredible Machine. SKIP IT.
Sort by
« Previous1Next »