If you’ve been following my reviews for quite some time, you may already know that I have a generally poor opinion of the average box-pushing puzzler on the system. Not only have there been far too many of them, but the majority also fail to do anything to help them stand apart, lacking in new ideas or anything to help make the form more interesting. Every once in a while though, we do see one of these games at least make a genuine effort, and Rat Protocol is one such title.

Now, I’m not going to make any claims that this will likely convert anyone to suddenly loving box pushers, at the end of the day fundamentally there’s only so far you can deviate from the norm. That said, Rat Protocol, though quite simple, does at least have enough variety and smart elements to help drive up both the challenge and overall level of engagement. By using things like lasers, different types of boxes that can be destroyed, and some other elements, there’s much more going on than merely pushing things into the proper place in the right order. That forces you to really think things through carefully, as well as make sure to execute everything properly.

I think it would have been nice to have the ability to rewind more than just one move, since it isn’t unusual as you work through problems to discover that you’ve painted yourself into a corner. Fortunately none of the puzzles tend to take all that long to get through once you know what to do, but the need to kill yourself to start over just feels like its wasting moments for no particularly good reason. Outside of that though, and the fact that this subgenre can tend to get a little tedious after a few stages, this particular title at least brings an honest effort to the table in a budget package, and that’s appreciated.