Alchemyprime's Omniblog

Game Review – Polarity

Game: Polarity

Developer: BlueButton Games

Cost: $4.99

Platform: OUYA (coming soon to Steam via GreenLight)

Genre: First Person Puzzler

Okay, I’ve been sitting on this review for a while, but I think it’s finally ready.

It was a calm Friday morning, the heat already sweltering admist the June sun, when I heard a van pull up in my driveway. I went outside and found the magical package – within it was my OUYA game console.

You might have seen that in the video from that day.

After an hour of fiddling with it, I started to sit down and play (publishing my own games will have to come later, alas).

What I found on the console were quite a few lack-luster titles, but there are a few very nice gems hidden within the little metal box. And the first of these gems I’m going to tell you about is Polarity.

The concept of of Polarity is simple enough – you are a hacker, and you’ve been hired to go into a company’s computer system, find little green data packets and get through red and blue obstacles by becoming red or blue yourself. There are also blue and red energy cubes and devices they power, yellow polarity fields, and green energy weapons that will mess you up.

The graphics feel nice and crisp for the game, with a very Tron-esque atmosphere. I’ve probably played through each level at least five times now. Part of the reason I’ve been enjoying it so much is its similarity to Valve’s own Portal series, but sadly, the wonderful ramblings of Cave Johnson or the underhanded comments of GLaDOS are nowhere to be found here. Instead, there is just the silence and the haunting noises of the world around you, and the very subtle soundtrack. The puzzles are fast paced and mind bending – it feels almost like I was trying to hack Aperture Science itself. The amount of times I have mixed up the laser grids and the force fields made me feel like an idiot, but I love that feeling of “Oh, it was so obvious!” when I play a puzzle game. That feeling that I need to look at something else.

There are also a few puzzles that make you just get frustrated because of timing - oddly, despite reports of the OUYA controller not being precise enough, I never had this issue with Polarity. It always seemed to do what I wanted. The only issue I had was with the DRM on the game - when I wasn’t connected to the Internet, it would revert to the free version. Thankfully BlueButton has fixed this issue - after the first time it sees you’ve bought the game, it stops needing to check in.

I hope there will be more levels soon, but even with only 11 puzzles it was more than worth it. If you have an OUYA, buy the full version of this – this feels like Portal, but with its own flavor that makes it nice and unique. If you don’t have an OUYA, I added it to the Omnistore, go buy one. And then buy Polarity. You won’t be sorry. If there is one developer who I expect great things from, it’s BlueButton Games, and I hope they continue to support the OUYA in the future.

Final verdict: If you need something to occupy your time until school is back in session, Polarity should be at the top of your list. And if you needed a reason to buy an OUYA or an Occulus Rift (the PC version will have support for it), it’s Polarity from BlueButton Games.