Review: Storm (XBLA) Courtesy of www.xboxramble.com (featuring Will Hamilton, from Dumbarton) STORM�is now available on the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace right now; this game is brought to you from Indiepub and Namco Bandai games and will cost you 800 Microsoft points (around �7).

From the offset you'll notice that�Storm�is a very pretty looking game, it immediately reminded me of�"Flower" or "Journey" over on the PS3 with its bright, colourful and lovely crisp graphics, which have an almost cell shaded effect that provide a pleasant, and at times, dramatic backdrop throughout the game.

Storm�is a physics-based puzzle game where you take control of the powers of nature as you attempt to guide a small seed toward the fertile ground so it can "take root and spring to life".

To help you in this endeavour you will have the power of wind, rain, lightning, snow, tornadoes, ice and the oddly out of place bubbles to help you solve environmental puzzles throughout the four seasons of a year.

Storm�is described as an adventure game enhanced by soothing, nature-inspired soundscapes and I'd agree that the sounds you'll hear while playing are indeed very soothing. Unfortunately the gameplay quickly becomes a lesson in trial and error with ultimate frustration after a slow start.

Things start off slowly with pretty linear puzzles to help you acclimate, but towards the end of the first of the four seasons in the game, the difficulty unexpectedly shoots up, just like the tree you're trying so hard to grow during each level.

Storm's�Levels aren't particularly long at all with most being possible in under a couple of minutes if done correctly, but what should be the draw of a game like this becomes its biggest inconvenience.

To�Storm's�credit, it does seek to go further than just bundle hundreds of copy and paste missions using rinse and repeat tactics. You will find yourself repeating things fairly often during the main "story mode", but there is a clear forward direction in learning along with several new obstacles, abilities and approaches needed to complete the levels.

Annoying difficulty spikes and fiddly, poorly explained controls take some of the enjoyment out of what at heart is a solid, unique little puzzler. On the bright side the relaxing background music and ambient sounds combined with bright, colourful and sharp presentation make this game stand out against other similar XBLA puzzle titles.

Throw in some unique and at times very clever and devious puzzles and�Storm�may well be worth a look on the next rainy weekend at home.