Trash Panic Review

You'd think that with such a cool concept that turns the stale "Tetris-clone" puzzle genre on its head in a totally modern way, there would be no way this game could turn out to be anything less than awesome. Yet somehow, Trash Panic turns out to be nothing more than an exercise in frustration.

The biggest problem with Trash Panic is its insane difficulty. Every level goes on far too long, throwing more and more trash at you until you finally fail and have to restart. It never gives any indication of how much trash is left either, making the game that much more infuriating. It's like the game is trying to test your patience.

Beyond the ridiculous difficulty lies a myriad of other problems that hold Trash Panic back. The rules seem flimsy at best, with the game only sometimes penalizing fallen trash. Occasionally items as light as a pencil can completely shatter items as heavy as a dumbbell loaded with weights. Giant metal safes will either land with the proper heft or bounce feet into the air. The menus are completely incomprehensible, the load times are long, and the game clocks in at a whopping 1.2GB.

I love the idea of throwing out the precision required in Tetris to neatly stack blocks in favor of smashing everything together, so it's wholly disappointing that the execution of this idea is incredibly flawed. Even at the low price of $4.99, I can't recommend Trash Panic at all.