Iceblast by Zombie Gecko is a puzzle/strategy game for the PC or Mac. In this game climate change has caused the polar ice caps to melt, creating a rapid decrease in global temperature. Under this global freeze, bizarre ice crystals began to form all over the world, immune to most forms of damage. To combat this strange threat, a special team has been created to remove the ice hazard; Skye, Luna, and Sun.

Our heroes have a limited amount of time to clear each screen of ice crystals. The ice crystals each have one to three (and occasionally more) shards to them. Once all the shards are broken off the crystal, the crystal is destroyed. The characters can each go out into the field to attack a crystal, but then has to rest for a moment before journeying back out for more.

Each of the three heroes has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to destroying the crystals. Skye is the fastest, with the shortest rest period, but she can only damage one shard at a time. Luna is the strongest; she can destroy up to three shards on a crystal with one punch, but her punch takes a long time to charge. Sun only destroys one shard at a time, like Skye, but she can strike at three different crystals at once.

When one ice shard is destroyed, it will damage those around it by one shard. It is possible to rack up a large combo with a domino effect if you time it just right. There are other ways to rack up points and combos as well, depending on how your team dispenses with the ice crystals, and it becomes a challenge to use all three of their abilities in conjunction to score the most points.

As you go through the game, smashing ice, you will earn credits you can use towards training your team, such as reducing a characters down time, or purchase equipment to give them that extra boost. There are also medals you can uncover by preforming various achievements, like stringing together a certain amount of combos, for instance. In addition to the ever present time limit, if your team spends too long on the ice, they freeze, some levels have other requirements to beat, such as reaching a certain amount of credits before completing the level.

The graphics for Iceblast are simple and Anime styled. Each of the three characters has her own animation when they attack the crystals, but other then that the game board is mostly static. This is a puzzle game that relies more on strategy then flash, as the trick to Iceblast is to tally up the biggest point score, using your three heroes to score as many combos as possible in the shortest time.

The story and theme of Iceblast may seem a bit strange at first, but then some of the best casual games are strange and different; that’s one of the reasons that we love them so much. You can buy Iceblast for $9.95, and download it here.