Trash Panic is a quirky and addictive test of skill
Have you ever looked at your trash can and thought, “Wow, that would be a great setting for a video game!”? If you have, then you should probably lay off the games for a while and seek professional help. Or you could fire up your Playstation 3 and prepare to revel in the filthy fun of Trash Panic, the latest in a long line of quirky PSN titles. You also might want to put away any breakable objects since the core gameplay of Trash Panic is as infectious as it is challenging.
At first glance, Trash Panic looks nearly identical to Tetris. Random items of trash fall from the top of the screen and you can rotate and move the pieces from left to right. However, the similarities end there immediately. Instead of gently placing the items in predetermined grids, you smash the trash according to the games physics engine. If the game gives you an upright light bulb, all you have to do is turn it around and hit a button to send it flying to the bottom of the trash can, then watch the pieces scatter. The object is to get every piece of trash in the can without it spilling over, which is a much harder task than it initially seems, and one that becomes increasingly complicated as you progress.
In the first level alone, you have to deal with bottles, mugs, food items, jewelry, and even dumbbells. Glass items are easy enough to deal with but ceramic, wood, and metal objects require more force to break. Combine that with the sheer volume of trash to deal with, and it immediately becomes apparent that haphazardly throwing trash into the can will quickly lead to a full can and a game over screen. That devastating screen can come up rather quickly too, since the game only allows three unbroken items to fall out before its time to hit “retry”.
Eventually, the game offers up some additional and highly effective ways to support your quest for cleanliness. You can use lit matches and torches to ignite paper, wood, and volatile refuse like dynamite and propane tanks. By pressing the L2 button, you can close the trash can lid to increase the temperature and make the fire spread, which helps clear away a huge amount of trash of any material. You can also shake the can by shaking the controller, which helps to fill in trash gaps and force a flaming ember to fall to a lower heap of junk. However, if you keep the lid on for too long, you’ll deprive the fire of oxygen, forcing it to go out and leaving you with nothing but a stack of hot garbage. Water also comes into play in later stages in conjunction with a decomposition sponge ball. The ball can absorb water and dissolve any trash items that come into contact with it. Eventually, the game turns into a strategic balance of when to use fire and when to break open water filled objects to take advantage of an approaching decomposition ball.
Physics play a large part in the game, but they aren’t super realistic by any means. Most of the objects break like you’d expect them to, but eventually you will come across some inconsistencies. For example, dropping a D-Battery onto a butcher knife wouldn’t cause it to shatter nor would dropping a katana on a metal shelf. But the objects in the game are judged more on their relative sizes and basic properties. Besides, you’ll be throwing away an extremely odd collection of trash anyway, so any sense of reality will soon be forgotten. After all, not many people throw away skyscrapers.
The scale and assortment of trash contributes greatly to the game’s visual style. The basic structure and Japanese eccentricities are incredibly similar to games like Katamari Damacy and NobyNoby Boy. You start out destroying small objects like pencils and by the end of the game you’re throwing away mountains and comets. The game doesn’t tax the PS3 hardware at all, but you’ll be too busy keeping an eye on the next trash item and plotting out your next move to really notice. The main thing that really hurts the game’s presentation are the unusually long load times. It’s a bit baffling for a downloadable game to have an almost 20 second load time just to get to the main menu, but at least the levels are quick to reload should you fail (which is both fortunate and crucial).
The sound effects perfectly fit the on-screen chaos. There’s nothing quite like a cacophony of glass shattering, crackling flames, and wood snapping in half as you smash to your hearts desire (it can be strangely therapeutic as well). The music, on the other hand, is pretty awful. Most stages feature obnoxious dance music, which becomes increasingly hard to ignore. Its really a shame custom soundtracks weren’t included since smashing items to your own tunes would have made the package that much sweeter.
Its hard not to see the value in Trash Panic. You get a puzzle game that should take hours to master, three difficulty settings, and a two player competitive mode all for five dollars. On the other hand, if you get easily frustrated and can’t stand trial and error gameplay, it might be best to stay away from this one. But for those who have the patience to stick with it, Trash Panic is a fun and challenging puzzle game that shouldn’t be tossed aside.
