Elements of Destruction – Xbox Live Arcade review

Nineteen years ago we wouldn’t budge from our PCs thanks to Sim City. It wasn’t the building and maintaining of a metropolis that had us enthralled, but the option to lay waste to cities with earthquakes, tornados, and floods. Elements of Destruction is a crazy extension of that simple premise. Taking control of a mad professor’s weather device (somebody’s been watching The Avengers movie too much – i.e. once) you pick your disasterof choice and, well, destroy everything in sight. What could be better, we hear you ask? Lots.

The earthquake, lightning and tornado attacks all can be powered up, but unfortunately the game’s third hour feels just like its first minute: simple and pointless. Moving an on-screen pointer over buildings and hitting a button or two just doesn’t do it nowadays. Dodging military adds a veneer of tactics into the mix, but ultimately EOD is little more than a simple – and ugly – game of tag. No thanks. It should have been a decent Blast Corps imitator, but EOD comes nowhere close. Soulless stuff.

Jul 11, 2008