King of Zing

What's particularly great about puzzle games is they generally don't try to distract players with fancy graphics, controversy or overly elaborate gameplay. In many respects, these things would only serve to hamper a good puzzle game, which requires simplicity and elegance to really succeed.

The obscurely titled King of Zing adheres to the principles of a good puzzle game by remaining intrinsically minimal throughout – relying solely on the quality of game mechanics to keep the user's attention. And it works quite well, though the complexity of the puzzles doesn't always meet the astronomically high standards the genre has seen over the years.

Not at all dissimilar to the classic computer game, Deflektor (which, if you're mercifully too young to remember it, required players to position mirrors about a grid to procure a safe route for a laser beam to hit its target), King of Zing makes similar use of a 15x15 square playing grid littered with obstacles across a whopping 290 levels.

The keypad controls set a rubber ball off bouncing in one of four directions. The ball can't be stopped manually, however, and if it bounces off the edge of the playing grid it's back to the beginning of the level.

The only way to position the ball is to throw it towards one of the single square obstacles, which serve to stop it on the adjacent square. Deciphering a path around the playing grid by moving from one obstacle to the next is the crux of King of Zing's puzzling premise, until the ball is finally lined up to be thrown at the red flag and complete the level.

Various collectables are also positioned about the grid (such as extra time and an irksome, amusing 'control reverser') which can be picked up by bouncing the ball across their path – time allowing.

The Arcade mode pits the level against a slowly diminishing timer, while Puzzle mode works purely on solving the level. A rather divergent bonus level also crops up in the shape of a fruit machine, enabling players to gamble a certain amount of points on the outcome. Quite how this relates to the rest of the game is a little unclear, but bonus bouts do tend to have the privilege of being a bit peripheral to the main premise, so it's easily forgiven.

Ultimately though, King of Zing is more interesting than it is playable; an intriguing notion that's perhaps a little more entertaining in concept than it is in play, though not for any technical reasons. It's a well-made game built on a solid premise – it's just not that much fun.

The levels become rather obvious, and a simple matter of moving the ball from one obstacle to the next – with little in the way of calculated manoeuvring. It's most unique feature for a game of this type is the way a move cannot generally be backtracked, and if something's been missed it requires careful thought to find a way back around the play area.

So King of Zing is fairly middle-of-the-road in this highly prolific gaming genre, but puzzle fans will still find a well-spent hour of distraction bouncing the ball around the grid.