On Our Desk - 12

Crazy Machines 2

Publisher: Viva Media
UK Price:
US Price: $20.99 (incl. Delivery)

At bit-tech, one thing we pride ourselves on is being a prominent part of our own community and regularly putting our two cents in on the forums discussions. That’s a good thing, but occasionally it does have downsides aside from getting caught looking at the babe thread – like when we get addicted to something like Fantastic Contraption, which Crazy Machines 2 is kind of similar to.

If you’re not one of the initiated however then we’ll explain a little more. Crazy Machines 2 is essentially a sandbox puzzle game in semi-3D. In any given level you’re tasked with performing a simple task, such as moving a ball through a series of hoops, which you must accomplish using the tools at your disposal.

The puzzling bit of the set-up pops up though when you look at the tools you have and the obstacles in your path. Frequently the conundrum will see you trying to do something like propel a football up a flight of stairs using a lightning generator, a 2x4 piece of metal and lever-activated crossbow.

There are hundreds of puzzles to solve in Crazy Machines 2 and tonnes of different tools to use, most of which may not be utterly realistic but are at least realistically simulated in terms of the game physics. There’s even some special Physx levels, though you’ll need a Physx card (and not just the new post-buyout drivers) to get them working. We did try, but the game demanded Agiea, not Nvidia.


When all that fails there’s even some totally sandbox modes for you to play with, placing balloons, rubber ducks and crates wherever you want.

That said, though the strength of Crazy Machines 2 is in the phenomenal selection of things you can do – everything from heat to wind to magnetism can be created and manipulated – the game still does have a fair share of issues.

For starters, the game isn’t exactly as accessible as it may seem. The tutorial process if long and drawn out, contrasting sharply with the massively cluttered and complex missions. Granted, most of this clutter is actually a result of the detailed backgrounds upon which your inventions are mounted, but that just makes the clutter even more irrelevant. Edwardian beams and stained glass windows make pleasant enough backgrounds, but when they detract from the game itself you have to question their worth.

Then there’s the occasional failure of the entire game design, where you spend ages hunting for just the right hotspot or position to drop something from even though you’ve ostensibly cracked the puzzle. The physics are occasionally laughable too, with no-clips and perpetual loops and no clips and perpetual loops and no clips.

You get it? It’s a joke!


Hot-spot hunting is one of the most infuriating issues and really shines through as a weakness of having such a detailed physics model. You might have a carefully constructed and utterly correct see-saw built to launch your rubber ducky through to the objective, only to fall down at the issue of finding the right height to drop your counter-weight from. Too high, you'll overshoot. Too low and you'll undershoot. Too far to the side and you...sideshoot?

Whatever, the fact is that it's mildly infuriating at the best of times and plain game-spoiling at the worst, seriously detracting from the whole fun and accessible vibe that the developers have apparently gone for with the light-hearted presentation and perfectly stereotypical tutorial guide.

Still, the main complaint we have against Crazy Machines 2 isn’t that the physics occasionally send things flipping out, or that it demands support from outdated technology (an Nvidia spokesperson has promised to look into this, but was unable to specifically comment).

Instead, our main problem is that the game doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. Games like Garry’s Mod 10 or The Fantastic Contraption offer essentially the same gameplay but in a better, more polished and cheaper form.

With Garry’s Mod giving players more complexity at a lesser price and Fantastic Contraption offering a scaled down version for free, Crazy Machines 2 has to squat awkwardly in the middle and cope without the acclaim of either market. It isn’t that the game is bad, just that it’s a formula done much better elsewhere.

Verdict: An inoffensive game which is sadly eclipsed by better adaptations.

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