Ping Redux | Xbox One Review
Get the white cube to the orange sphere. Sounds simple. Developer Nami Tentou has a different idea in Ping Redux. Building off of Ping 1.5, Ping Redux is a bouncing puzzle game with a retro feel. The levels bring back memories from games like Pong, Space Invaders, and Q-Bert. Even the techno music playing in the background alludes to the retro gaming days. This creates a nice backdrop for a simple, yet challenging, puzzler.
A Simple Throwback
The basis of the game is Bust-A-Move meets Angry Birds meets ping pong. The controls are simple. Aim with control stick, shoot the cube with A, and reset the puzzle with Y. As the levels progress, new challenges increase the difficulty, and add variety to the puzzles. Timing is important since you need to hit or dodge moving walls. Taking advantage of the slow motion while aiming helped a great deal. Some of my favorite puzzles allowed, and needed, extra shots to complete them. They weren’t as much about speed, but precision, when aiming every shot. I’m not huge into achievements, but it was fun getting the “no bounce” one though.
Each level has to be completed in a certain amount of bounces. If you like to push yourself like I do, there’s a gold, silver, or bronze star finish for getting less bounces. The more stars you earn, the more worlds you open up. There were some levels where the difficulty spiked unexpectedly. A few I had to pass on after so many attempts. Then, at times, there were a few in a row that are obvious.
Embrace the Retro
Every world features a boss level, which helps with the variety. They are more like mini-games than puzzles. You are put in either an attack or defense mode where you need to destroy or stop other objects.
With controls that are just aim, shoot, and reset, Ping Redux definitely focuses on creating challenging and fun little puzzles. With 12 worlds and over 100 puzzles, there is some redundancy, but for the most part they do a good job of building the puzzles off each other. Overall, it is worth the price of admission.
This review is based on an Xbox One copy of Ping Redux provided by Nami Tentou for coverage purposes. It’s also available on PC.
Ping Redux
$4.99
Pros
- Simple, Yet Fun
- Retro Feel
- Good Achievements
Cons
- Difficulty Spikes
- Some Redundancy
