Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Dynamix
Publisher: Dynamix

The Incredible Machine isn't anything incredible to look at. It uses simple, albeit clean, sprites to represent the puzzle objects and a simple bitmap as the background to each puzzle. There's little in the way of special effects, and while the game's visuals suit the premise of the title well, they should have redone all the sprites for this port to take advantage of the 3DO's power.

Like the visuals, the sound effects are a lesson in simplicity and are merely functional. As well, they fit the game in a puzzle sort of sense. The music consists of cliched, generic tunes from just about every genre imaginable, including Jamaican, classical, rock, and also a song straight out of a 1940's mystery show. The songs add some character to the game but, like all else, are merely functional, and help to keep things varied and interesting.

This title involves taking a pre-built yet incomplete "machine", a toolbox of puzzle pieces, and then sticking them into the machine to make it perform a function, which is given to you at the beginning of the phase. The puzzle pieces vary from ropes and pulleys to sea-saws to monkies on bicycles to generators. There is a good variety in the amount of puzzle pieces, there's hundreds of puzzles to solve, and you can make your own puzzles to share with other people. A creative idea for a game with some clever puzzles that, for the most part, works pretty well.

The puzzle creator isn't quite as fun or flexible as it at first seems, so you're left working through the puzzles that come with the game. This isn't a bad thing at all though, as it's pretty addicting knocking off the puzzles one by one, especially with a friend or loved one to put your head together with an attempt to beat every level. All the same, this title is really just more of a diversion from the juicier 3DO games out there; definately not a bad game, but not one of the best games on the system.