Prepare To Hate Your Stupid, Fat Thumb In Orbsorb [Review]

Obsorb is hard.

It’s not that it’s complicated or the enemies move too quickly or even that its controls are tricky. But it’s one of those games where you’ve lost as soon as it starts, and all you can do is delay the inevitable.

In theory, if you were good enough at it, you could play it indefinitely. But that’s not going to happen because it’s impossible.

In Orbsorb, you control a round “Orbsorber” that is under constant attack from differently colored orbs. But it’s an Orbsorber, so it can absorb those orbs. But only the orbs that are the same color as the Orbsorber. You have to spin the ‘sorber’s shield around to block the orbs that aren’t the right color, and then once you have the hang of it, the Orbsorber will change color, and you have to block totally different things.

And then the word “orb” loses all meaning.

All you can do is delay the inevitable.

The controls are simple enough: You just use your thumb to spin the shield around. But you’ll inevitably run into “thumb slippage” or run out of room or go too far the other way and find that you’re blocking your view, and then the stark inevitability of failure in Orbsorber becomes very, very real.

It’s not really the game’s fault. It’s a swipe-controlled platform; what can you do? But I failed more often because I found my thumb in the wrong place than from any real mistakes on my part, and that gets a little frustrating after a while.

Game Name: : Orbsorber The Good: Quick to learn, excellent music, and the The Bad: My thumb hates me and wants me to fail. Stupid thumb. The Verdict: If you can get past the annoyance of your own inability to control it, it offers enough other challenge to keep you busy and engaged. Buy from: App Store — Orbsorb — Montgomery Guilhaus

[rating=game4]