HACKED

Review

Are you a fan of match three / puzzle games? If you are, you are going to be hooked when playing HACKED!

In HACKED you are in control of a canon which is located at the bottom your screen. This Canon shoots colour orbs and you can move it horizontally. Your goal is to eliminate all orbs in each level with a minimum number of shots. For example, you need to clear all orbs with eight shots; if you manage to do better or par you will earn a golden star. Some orbs have power up within them and it is very easy to recognize them as they have either an icon or an effect on them.

The ones with an icon have power up for your canon: the like of grenades, bullets, spike balls and ghosts. By using the grenade, it will destroy a large number of orbs. If you decide to shoot a spike ball, it will clear all orbs that come in contact with it but only from the direction of the shot and the other one you will have to play to find out what they do!

The orbs with the lightning effect on them will destroy all orbs of the same colour when you activate them. A total of ten power ups is available.

How do you die in this game, you may wonder? Well, on both sides of the screen there is a gauge. Each time you shoot an orb and miss a match three, or you move the canon too frequently, the gauge will go up and as soon as it reaches the top of the screen all orbs will be pushed down. If an orb reaches the bottom of the screen, you die!

Plenty of game modes in HACKED. The arcade has five different modes within it and the levels are progressively harder. You will have to earn a certain number of golden stars to unlock some of them, which gives you a fair bit of replay-ability. In the classic one, you can choose your level of difficulty (easy, normal or hard) as well as one of three types of modes you want to play. They are Standard, Marathon and Time Attack. You can also create your own level and share it with the entire Steam community.

The graphics are standard for this genre of game. The music is pumping but not to my liking, I must admit. Thank god we can turn it on and off.