Tricky matching game Look Again! worth a double-take

Matching games tend to unfairly get lumped into the kid game category. Perhaps it’s because their basic premise is so simple or that you always end up matching colorful animal shapes, but there aren’t matching games geared toward an older crowd.

Look Again! Is the exception to that rule, as it is not child’s play. The shapes you match here range from geometric objects to outlines of animals, but there’s no emphasis on cute and cuddly.

Instead, the pace is more manic, as players have a limited time to get through each level by identifying which pictures combine to create the figure in the center of the game screen. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it’s not a difficult process to understand once you’re playing the game.

As the difficulty increases throughout the course of the game’s 250 levels, you’ll have to combine more shapes and contend with identifying shapes even as they disappear and reappear off the board. Look Again! provides quite a challenge, and is certainly not for the weak-willed.

That said, there are things that could make it a more rewarding experience. One of the features that initially caught my eye was the ability to start your game on any level, assuming you had already beaten the level in question. That seemed like a nod to players who didn’t always want to begin by playing level 1 if they had advanced through the first 50 before succumbing to the time limit.

As great as that sounds, it doesn’t seem to work. Despite advancing on numerous play-throughs, I was never able to start at any level other than 1. I’m not sure if there’s a certain level you need to get to in order to trigger the feature, but it was frustrating to have to keep beginning at level 1 despite my progress.

Look Again! is a rather plain game, but those looking for a challenging matching game probably won’t begrudge some simple visuals as long as the puzzles are good, and they definitely are. If you’re looking for a quick match game that a kid wouldn’t be able to dominate without a fight, Look Again! is a solid option.

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