Nuclear Meltdowns in the Mouth, Not in the Hand

User Rating: 5 | SpaceChem PC
Video games can occasionally give us that sensation of being better at something then we really are. Shooters send the message that we're ready to pack our bags and ship off for duty, sport games have us think we belong on the side-lines managing those professional athletes instead of parking our dumpsters all day on the sofa, and RTS's would go so far as to believe generalship is our destiny. Then there's SpaceChem, a small puzzle game that tricks you into thinking you work in a Nuclear Reactor.

If it were true, my plant would have melted down six hundred times to next Tuesday, the learning curve is simple enough but the levels increase difficulty in an exponentially ball-squeezing way. So the only way to squeeze some fun out of the game was to keep one hand down my pants fondling my sack and the other on the mouse while I was watching my idiotically crafted molecule track send molecules around in such a fashion that it created a back-story behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

So science is obviously not my thing, and successfully completing a stage does leave with some warm, satisfying feeling that they're are still parts of your brain functioning properly. However when the difficulty gets ramped up like a twinkie exploding its white goo in your face, you may find yourself moments away from doing what I did just before starting this review. Putting the game in the recycle bin.

Spacechem doesn't quite quench your boredom but then again neither does Gatorade.