Polarium looks like being a truly original puzzle game, in a genre where few ideas are left that haven't been bled dry. The most striking thing you will notice when you first look at this game is the lack of colour. The majority of the game screen is black, white or grey. This is to ensure that visually it is as uncluttered as possible, ensuring you wont make any mistakes by confusing one shade of colour for another. This game adds to the already large and high quality launch day line up for the DS.

The idea behind this game is very simple. On the lower screen you have a pattern of black and white squares, with a grey border. On the top screen, depending on mode, you will either have the same image, or a different pattern of tiles, waiting to fall into the bottom screen. You need to clear lines of tiles by turning them all white or black. To reverse their polarity (hence the games name) you just draw a line on the square you want to change. But, this is where it gets tricky: as the tiles fall from above faster, you have to clear the tiles in the lower screen faster, meaning you will have to draw longer lines, linking more and more tiles together. Your line cannot double back over itself, which is where the grey border comes in. It is a neutral area, so you can go around the outside to get to places you have blocked off inside the square.

The grey border becomes even more important when you change mode, from standard mode to Puzzle mode. Here the screen is static and you have to clear the whole pattern with one line. It starts of simple, but when you get towards the end (there are 100 patterns in all) it will become fiendishly hard. You can also make your own patterns, and send them wirelessly to challenge your friends.

In addition to the single player modes there is also a 2-player wireless battle mode, with power-ups. In this mode any line you clear will be added to your opponents' screen. The power-ups will also help you to make your opponents life hard by speeding up how quickly you can clear lines.

This should be a highly entertaining puzzle game. The early impressions from Japan have been very favourable, with even the harshest reviewers giving the game good scores. The main problem I can see with this game, though, is that it might have a limited lifespan, especially if you find that you struggle using a stylus. The game is not brimming over with game modes, so may get stale after a while. However, I reckon that it should be great fun while it lasts.