Hexcite Fusion First Look

Square Enix, a company that's still largely typecast as a role-playing-game specialist, has been making an effort to advertise the other aspects of its business lately. Its newest offerings include a third-person shooter, several MMOs, a film, a manga series...and a mobile puzzle game. It's ironic that the same guys who've baffled you with the most convoluted storylines in video game history will soon be asking you to place colored shapes on a grid. This move is heartening, though, because it indicates that Square Enix has a thorough grasp of the American mobile gaming market, where casual games are king. The puzzler in question, Hexcite Fusion, is based on a popular board game made by a Japanese company called Gajin. We only saw a brief snippet of gameplay footage at Square Enix's press event, but it was enough for us to come away with a promising impression.

Apparently, in Hexcite Fusion, players will be tasked with filling up a hexagonal grid with various types of shapes, all of which are different colors. The board's gridded into six large triangles, which are split up into four smaller component triangles. These are split again into base-level triangles, where you can park your trapezoids and such. However, it seems as though you only get a limited number of each kind of shape. You score points against a CPU or human opponent by taking over territory with these shapes, thereby pushing the other player to the margins.

Hexcite Fusion struck us as a competitive, colorful take on the old spatial-reasoning game Tanagrams. It'll be out on Verizon Wireless and select European carriers later this year, and we'll have the full review for you as soon as possible.