If If during your toddler years you could never understand why the Circle didn’t fit into the Triangle on the shape block, this game isn’t for you! Roogoo basically takes that concept and make an Xbox Live Arcade Game out of it. Sounds crazy, especially when you mix it a goofy name like “Roogoo.” Don’t worry, there’s no Kangaroos or Goo in this game at all. With art and names that seem like they were taken out of a Dr. Seuss book I honestly wondered what I had gotten myself into when I started this game up.

About four hours later and through almost the entire game, I didn’t regret the choice one bit. Describing the gameplay is somewhat tricky, but I’ll give it my best. Basically you control the direction a circle turns.  Meanwhile shapes fall and you must turn your circle to allow the shapes to either pass through or stack up. The amount of shapes on the turning wheel ranges as you go on, starting with an easy three it ends up with five! Though this doesn’t sound too difficult the shapes often go down extremely quickly, requiring you to tap LB and RB in less then a second in order to keep the shape moving without a hitch. The beginning levels are easy for the most part, but even on the easiest of levels you still want to try and hit par time! Honestly the par time is so quick that with this games kiddy graphics I have no idea who this game was aimed towards.  The ultimate goal in the game is to get a giant stack of a certain shape or “Meteor” as the story tells us, to the bottom row. You finish all the shapes and you beat the level. The game does boast a lot of levels, and the backgrounds and theme changes occasionally to mix things up. Though even with that, you can’t help but feel a little sense of repetition. Not too much, as the gameplay is mixed up every now and then making you wonder if the game will ever stop being so challenging. Though these twists usually last only for a level or two, things quickly revert back to the norm. As I mentioned, there is a story in this game, luckily it’s a puzzle game, thus very unimportant, but the producers emphasized that the story is amazing. Its far from that, and seems to be stolen from a Disney movie I’ve never seen before. I mean, they hit the goal of making it a “Cute” story, and even opened it up for a sequel, but its not going to win any Academy Awards.

Aside from the challenging difficulty that “stacks up” (Pun completely intended) as you go on sometimes being plain ridiculous, the game is really fun. Sadly the graphics and style will turn most gamers away, causing for a pretty dead online. Yes, even for an XBLA game, and a recently launched game, there isn’t too many people online to play with. Though I’m not the biggest puzzle gamer in the world, Roogoo kept my attention more than any other Bejeweled clone which dominate the Marketplace. Simply put the game is fun! I will spend a ton of time attempting to get that 50 Pt. Achievement for getting all the par times! Unfortunately spending 800 Microsoft Points on a puzzle game is a big leap, no matter how fun.

I can’t decide for you if this game is for you or not! You either like it or hate it I guess, granted I really liked it and am addicted, (now I imagine falling shapes in my head) so all I can really say is try the Demo and see what you think!