Windows Phone Thoughts: Molecular Chemistry at its Most Fun: Atomix Reviewed

Graphics and Sound
The graphics in Atomix are great. The level select screen has some nice-looking scrolling text that shows your record times. This text and the intro graphics are nice, adding just a bit of pizazz to a fairly straightforward puzzle game. Once in the game, atoms and bricks float across the screen as you move them. I found myself getting frustrated at how slowly the pieces seemed to move at times. Don't get me wrong, they move at a nice speed. But when you have just a few seconds to finish a level, it seems like an eternity.


Figure 4: Nice level select screen.

The sounds in the game are good. The pieces whoosh around the screen and make a nice sound when thunking into each other. The music is of puzzle-techno variety. I'm not sure what makes techno mixes match so well with puzzle games but hey, who am I to complain? If you've seen my previous reviews, you'll know that I normally turn off sound and music. When I did have it on though, I enjoyed the music and sounds.

OS Interoperability
Atomix runs great on my HP iPAQ 1945. System alarms go off correctly without crashing the program. The only problem I noticed with the game is if I power off my Pocket PC. When I turn it back on, the game is frozen and I sometimes have to do a soft reset. Turning the device off and on a second time usually solved this problem.

Conclusions
This game is just plain fun! Atomix is a challenging game that lets you solve puzzles at the molecular level. After playing the first few levels, I was hooked. The graphics are good but don't get in the way. The 3 difficulties and 28 levels kept me coming back for more. At $7.95, it's a steal.