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Germinator (PS3) Review

 
Germinator Logo
Germinator Logo
Germinator Logo

 
At A Glance...
 

Formats: PS3, PSVITA
 
Genre:
 
Year:
 
Developer:
 
Final Score
7.5
7.5/ 10


User Rating
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We liked?


Furiously fast puzzle action.

Not so much?


You need to be 100% on your feet, 100% of the time.


Final Fiendish Findings?

Germinator is just a fun game. With some admittedly quite corny humor, and a sense of playfulness throughout, it offers a challenging game that your entire family can enjoy together. Germinator has tons of levels, and going back to get more stars and better scores on previous levels adds a lot of playability to it as well. You can even get some local multiplayer action going, either against your friends or the computer. Germinator is good, clean fun, and well worth the cost of a download.

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Posted February 15, 2013 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

It’s time for a little gratuitous virulence!

Perfectly timed for this season’s achy bodies, stuffy noses, and scratchy throats, Creat Studios brings your new puzzling addiction. Those germs have had the run of the house long enough – it’s time to fight back. How? With the deadliest germ-killing machine of all time, The Germinator 3000.

The action in Germinator is of the bubble popping variety. You need to work your way through the various rooms of the house – nursery, bathroom, backyard, office, kitchen – and systemically clear each portion of it from all bacteria. Basically, each room is a level with many stages to get through. You have to beat each one to unlock the next. How do you show the germs whose boss? With killer strategy and dead-on timing.

Germinator departs a bit from traditional bubble popping games, and that’s a good thing that makes it feel fresh and new, yet familiar, all at the same time. The Germinator 3000 shoots colored germs out, and you are able to see the next few coming up but not control them. The stages are set with a variety of matching colored germs, as well as a number of the deadly black bacteria, which you must destroy entirely to clear the stage.

Rather than shooting the germs to match three, you shoot a germ at one the same color, and it is absorbed. As it absorbs germs, it will grow until it finally pops in a glorious mess, destroying any bacteria in the immediate vicinity. Of course, while you are furiously trying to uncover all the bacteria, there is an oily black sludge below that is slowly (and sometimes not so slowly) pushing the whole thing up towards the top. If a germ reaches the top of the stage, you lose and must start over again.

The interesting thing is that the order of germs you receive is not random; you’ll get the same colors in the same order each time, helping you to plan out the most effective strategy for the more difficult levels. You can have as many tries as you need, and many times you’ll need plenty to get past. Once you get past a stage, you are given a rating of between one and three stars, depending on the combos you made, time spent on the level, etc. You can go back and redo the levels at any time, giving you the opportunity to increase those scores that bothered you.

While timing is an absolute must in Germinator (things move *very* quickly), it suprised me how much strategy comes into play. Each color of germ has its own special ability, which can only be used when the special bar has been fully charged. How you use the specials, at what time you use it, and even which color you choose often is the ultimate decider of whether you make it past a stage or not. And you’ll have to make those decisions on the fly, as the action doesn’t stop for a second, and the stages just get more and more convoluted as you work your way through the house.

Different areas in the house introduce you to new hazards, and some bonuses as well. Sticky platforms will hang onto any balls you throw, while other platforms will bounce them right back at you. Spiky germs will pop balls that get too close (and oftentimes, even one can make a huge difference in your outcome). But you have a secret weapon against the germs as well: meds. Some levels have pills of various sizes that, while generally difficult to get to, will explode all the bacteria around them when hit. Using these to the right advantage can create some of your best chain reactions in the game (plus, it looks pretty cool).

Germinator is just a fun game. With some admittedly quite corny humor, and a sense of playfulness throughout, it offers a challenging game that your entire family can enjoy together. Germinator has tons of levels, and going back to get more stars and better scores on previous levels adds a lot of playability to it as well. You can even get some local multiplayer action going, either against your friends or the computer. Germinator is good, clean fun, and well worth the cost of a download.


Amy

 
U.S. Senior Editor & Deputy EIC, @averyzoe on Twitter, mother of 5, gamer, reader, wife to @macanthony, and all-around bad-ass (no, not really)


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