Game Reviews

Boson X

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Boson X
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| Boson X

There's a brief moment when I glance up at the energy counter in the top corner of the screen and my palms start to sweat. 99 percent.

I only need to touch another energy tile and I'll have unlocked this particle. I leap across a gap, darting left to land on a disappearing platform, then double-press to punch-it across the next gap.

Ahead of me a blue block, an energy tile, slides into place. It's a handful of seconds away, easily within reach. And then I get hit by a bolt of lightning.

There's a poof of pixels and my run ends. It's a new high score, the game tells me. I can't type what I tell the game.

Boson me around

Boson X is an endless-runner that's tangentially about science. You play a professor wearing a tweed jacket who's sprinting down the inside of a particle accelerator, leaping from platform to platform to snag energy. Get enough energy and you unlock the particle you're looking for.

Unlocking particles unlocks new levels with different constraints, tougher set-ups, and their own unique styles.

Tapping on the left of the screen jumps you left, tapping the right sends you right, and tapping both jumps you forward. Holding down your fingers for longer extends your jumps, sending you soaring through the air as the level warps and creates itself underneath you.

The game is both tense and breathtaking at the same time. You'll crash into walls with a burst of expletives one minute, only to dart through a tricky section and grab the energy you need to progress soon after.

Watching the levels build themselves around you can be mesmerising, and requires swift reactions as you hurl your scientist towards a point where seconds before there was only empty space.

Boson, one day all this will be yours

With the endless-running genre ploughing an ever-deepening furrow of mediocrity, Boson X could well be ignored. That would be terrible, because this is a brilliant, twitchy arcade masterpiece that pulsates with originality and heart.

Bleary eyed at half past one I take what I swear will be one final shot at the run, all of my recent attempts having ended in minuscule percentages and early deaths. An hour later I'm still there.

That's how good Boson X is, and why you should pick it up as soon as you can.

Boson X

A spectacular kick in the teeth of the endless-runner genre, Boson X is a brilliant, twitching wonder
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.