Review: Surge On PlayStation Mobile
Surge, available on PlayStation Mobile and PlayStation Vita. The first game out of the blocks for Futurlab following their landmark deal with Sony. Being Futurlab I must say my expectations for the game are high, following a string of hits, we look to see if they can keep up the momentum and provide another new experience on the mobile device. This time bringing us a connect the bricks time attack game, cover me i’m going in……
From the first time you boot the game, you can feel the sleek design going into the game, swipe your finger up and down the background and cause a wavy electronic current to engulf the screen. Keep taking your finger off and on to get different colours. Its little touches like this that show Futurlab care about every detail in their games. First glance you can be mistaken, as it does look like a Tron fanboy threw up on a Tetris screen but no its just that neon sex appeal. Hit up the instructions setting to be greeted with a rough overview on how the game is played. Its a simple concept, connect same coloured blocks together with a line created by your finger without ever lifting it off, you can make it a messy line or a neat line, depends on how steady your hand is! You can also connect blocks sitting side by side by merely touching the two blocks and still continue to link them to other blocks. Release your finger and the combo you have created gets executed, harsh word but it makes it all sound a bit better. It basically destroys the blocks in the combo and in doing so unlocks the blacked out squares and brings them to life in a colour.
Wipeout a whole line will reveal a vent on the side, reveal the other side and any matching coloured blocks left give you more points. Blocks with stars give you a bonus aswel so link them to more starred blocks for maximum points. Power ups show up in game aswel and add more spice and urgency to proceedings. It could be as simple as turning blocks close to it to one colour, or it could randomize the colours. All this is going on as the clock is ticking. Its all about getting the highest combos in the quickest amount of time. The touch controls work flawlessly and after many many, many hours of play I have yet to encounter a problem and I have big hands.
Included in the game are leaderboards for full on bragging rights. As you would expect the devs are on it and have ridiculous high scores, but then if they had crap scores you would be worried? Leaderboards are online enabled. In game trophies are available. They pop up as you reach the rquirements and are nothing more than a nice to have. Hopefully one day it will get full PSN trophy support but for now its all good. The music is great and keeps your adrenalin levels high as you sweat like a pig in a butchers shop chasing those scores.
In summary the game shoots its creative love juices all over the mobile gaming scene, and again Futurlab have produced a top title worthy of anyones time. It has quickly become my go to mobile game and will continue to be until, well probably the next Futurlab game. I dont know how they do it, but they always seem to give us a game we didnt ask for, but forever grateful that they brought it to us. Sony didi a good thing and we the gamers are in for a treat. Dont take my word for it, grab your device and go download Surge now!
