Kenolaba

And so the revolving cycle continues, with Kenolaba being unique if not exactly engrossing. The best way to explain it is Othello if it were sumo-wrestling. Confused? My job here is done!

Honestly, that's pretty much how it plays out, right down to the annoying give-and-take tactics that take forever to play out. You start out on a hexagonal playing-field populated with balls. The point is to push your opponent's balls off of the playing field. You have to have more balls in the group you're pushing with than the group you're pushing.

My room mate cracked up every time I said 'balls' while trying to describe it to him.

It's graphically on-par with late 90s shareware for Windows, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The graphics are simple, but clear, and not entirely unattractive. I hate the color yellow, so I personally don't really care for the color-scheme, but the vaguely golf-ballish look of the pieces is fun. It compares favorably to most of the other KDE games I've looked at, meaning it doesn't make me want to vomit, so there's that.

There's no sound. Once again, and I'm tired of saying that, so I think I'm just not going to mention sound when it isn't present and isn't necessary, this game doesn't need sound. It's a turn-based logic-puzzle/strategy game. Without a plot, or any kind of dramatic tension at all. Sound would just be irritating.

Final verdict? Meh. Not my thing, but at least it's not a clone of something I've played six times already, and fully functional. It's got an AI opponent, with different degrees of difficulty, so it's cool for single-player. If they were to add networked multiplayer it would pretty much be perfect for what it is. Want another abstract strategy game? Check it out. Want another FPS? Pass.