It has definitely taken some time to get to this point, but finally the physics-vehicle-builsing-destruction-puzzle game Besiege has made its way to the Nintendo Switch! For the uninitiated, Besiege puts the player in control of building anything they want, within reason, in order to complete a take. That task can be to secure some giant balls, unalive an army, or tear down a city. As long as you can complete your objective, no one really cares how you get there, and that’s what’s exciting, use your imagination (SpongeBob gif here (no there’s no SpongeBob gif, use your imagination)).

That is actually a surprising amount of blood..

So, what’s so great about Besiege being brought to the Nintendo Switch I hear you ask? Well Johnny, this is the type of game I like to call perfect for what the Switch delivers. Every level goes by pretty quickly, especially early on. That makes Besiege perfect for handheld play where you have ten minutes while you’re sitting down for lunch or waiting for someone to show up. It engages your creative and problem-solving brain, which is just good for mental health. Lastly, it still looks great on the Switch. While the design is pretty simple since everything is slapped in the middle of a white void of space, even on the smaller handheld screen it’s quite easy to work out what all the individual pieces are and what your objective is.

I was just out for a nice drive and suddenly, vikings!

So let’s breakdown this gameplay a little more; first off, we have our story mode. This is where we learn to play with levels out together by the developers. Once again, we are forced to engage our creative sides. For instance, there is a level early on with a tower that shoots laser beams at you and will set your vehicle on fire. Since you’re made of wood, that’s ideal. Obviously, the objective is to destroy this tower. Now I have no idea what the desired solution was, but I don’t think I did it. Instead I made a raft, put a bunch of balloons on the bottom to make it float while I was out of range of the tower, applied a couple cannons, and shot it while I was floating high enough.

That’s just the first basic example of how you might handle a puzzle in Besiege. The other game mode is a sandbox mode; this gives you a few options of world to test out some of your builds. Want to make some insane tank? Try it out here and see if you can make something that will tear the world apart. The best part is, you can save your builds as well, making them easy to find if you want to load them up for any of the story missions!

Honestly, I would love to know what the “intended” solution was.

A final note to mention is the sound design. This is a section, where likely to the benefit of the game, there isn’t a lot going on. Cannons make bangs, when enemies are shooting arrows at you, the bowstring makes a snap noise, and the background music is incredibly relaxing and spacy. The reason this works is because you need to concentrate, and I could only imagine how much more difficult putting a cohesive vehicle would be if there was either zero music, or some upbeat electronic song playing. Which means, to bring this to a close, it’s great Besiege is finally on Nintendo Switch. It’s one of those games that is absolutely perfect for what the console does, enjoy building massive tanks to destroy your enemies.

Besiege is available now on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Besiege was provided by the publisher.