EDGE

Edge is a refreshing splash in the puzzle genre. It combines gorgeous visuals, gripping gameplay, and control schemes to please all types of users. The basis of the game is to guide your cube along a path that is shown to you in an isometric perspective, so that some parts of a path are obscured. You're given a small map in the top left, and depending on your control preferences, a four-way navigation area at the bottom.

Points are awarded based on your finishing time and how many prisms you collected. Grades of D through S+ are given to the user depending on time in which the map is completed and prisms collected, D being anything from a slow time, not collecting all of the prisms in the map, falling of an edge too many times, or a combination of the three. The S+ grade is given to individuals who complete a map not only with a stellar time, but collect all of the map's prisms and finish without dying once. The levels get increasingly harder through the game and by level 20 or so you may find some obstacles to be nigh impossible. The levels are riddles with obstacles such as falling tiles, switches, moving blocks and openings that you must make use of a shrinking tile to enter. Alas, there are patches of ground marked with a question mark to serve as a guide for those maybe not savvy enough to figure out a maneuver themselves.

The game's name comes not only from the concept of falling off an edge, but a special score you can accomplish called an "Edge" score, this scored is given based on how much time during a map you balance on the edge of an obstacle, and is a necessity in some levels just to advance. The controls were a bit to get used to, but once you get the hang of your finger placement you won't have much of a problem with it. The only trouble I had was with the four-way control area being in the way sometimes and having to readjust my placement on the controls to avoid moving the cube in the wrong direction. The tilt controls were really sensitive even on the low settings, and you have to calibrate the zero position on your phone before starting with that control set. There was one other control set that I liked, and that was the drag controls. You would use your finger anywhere on the screen and simply drag in the direction you wanted the cube to flip. The problem I had with this control set was two-fold, first, your finger would wind up all over the screen, obscuring a lot of your view, the second was that since the game is in an Isometric perspective, dragging down, left, right, or up simply isn't an option. It's more of a 45 degree rotation of a traditional D-pad control setup.