Aqua Aqua: Wetrix 2 (PS2)

No, I've never played Wetrix 1, and I had no idea what this game was about. I picked it up for a mate and figured I'd give it a blast before I passed it on.

So what is it about, then?

Well, it's a puzzle game. Great, my favourite! In this one, you have a plot of land, onto which you must drop Tetris-style blocks of mud - not to fill up the land, but to create reservoirs into which you must drop water. So the trick is to create a completely enclosed space, so that the water remains enclosed. At this point, things happen, such as dropping a fireball into the reservoir to evaporate the water, or creating a rainbow for a bonus.

Other variations are available; for example, you may be given a plot that already contains several filled lakes, and you have to drop "downers" in strategic places in order to create just one lake. Do that, and evaporate all the water, and you win. Leave any enclosed lakes and you don't.


No, I don't know if that'll help

It all sounds great in theory, but as I've said before, I'm no good with puzzle games, and this one is certainly no different. I simply couldn't grasp the concept... well, it wasn't so much that, as I couldn't "see" the playfield properly. You need to be exact in your placement of blocks, and I constantly missed by one or two places, even with the ground highlighted where my block would land. This misplacement meant that I would have gaps in the walls and the water would run out, so I would lose.

You want to know how far I got? The third level of the tutorial. And I played for over an hour. I'm surprised I stuck it out that long, to be honest. That doesn't make Aqua Aqua a bad game... it's just not for me, not even in the slightest. Better arrange that meeting sooner rather than later...