PushMo

PushMo, an absolutely brilliant title only available through the eShop is easily one of the best shape-based puzzle games since the original Tetris.

Published: 01/13/2012

by Allen Rausch

By Nintendo for 3DS

$6.99, rated E, ages 8 and up

The eShop for the Nintendo 3DS doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention that the downloadable games on Apple’s iPad does. That’s unfortunate because Nintendo’s buy-and-download-immediately electronic store boasts some really good games – including some old-school classics from earlier eras. This is doubly unfortunate due to the recent release of PushMo, an absolutely brilliant title only available through the eShop that’s easily one of the best shape-based puzzle games since the original Tetris. If you haven’t been to the eShop, though, you might miss it, and that would be a genuine shame.

The basic idea is pretty simple. You play an adorable blobby character named Mallo who has to run around PushMo park rescuing children who have gotten stuck in PushMos, playground equipment made of stacked colorful blocks that can be pushed and pulled up to three spaces away from the background wall. Players push and pull blocks and jump Mallo up and down on top of them in hopes of getting to the top of the structure and rescuing the child. Sound simple? It’s not. These simple elements combine to create more than 200 puzzles of varying levels of complexity, some of them genuine head-scratchers.

Fortunately, the game is not as unfriendly as other puzzle titles in the past have been. You can always skip over a puzzle that’s too hard for you and come back to it later. The game boasts an excellent tutorial, and when you’ve finished, a great creation tool lets you build your own puzzles and share them with others. There are already PushMo communities forming on the Internet that will give you a lifetime of puzzle fun.

Allen also recommends …

• Super Mario Kart 7, by Nintendo for 3DS, $39.99, rated E, ages 6 and up

• Super Mario 3D Land, by Nintendo for 3DS, $39.99, rated E, ages 8 and up

• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, by Nintendo for Wii, $49.99, rated E10+, ages 10 and up

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