System Mania is a frantic multi-tasking game that puts your skills to the test.

You take on the job of helping a busy Fiona start up her own handy girl fix-it business taking calls from local businesses that require her skills to fix all sorts of weird and wonderful machinery.

Multiple lights flash showing you which part of the machine needs attention and what order and you have to multi-task like a demon to keep the machines from breaking down.

There are special coins that you can collect that either add to your points or unlock special bonuses. You can either play story mode or straightforward arcade version. There is also a ’Tricky’ version on the main menu that considerably speeds the whole thing up. You have to deal with buttons, wheels, ripcords, pluck strings and turn wheels.

Didn’t find this a game that grabbed my attention much. Once I had finished a level that was pretty much it, I didn’t particularly want to go back and play again, unless I failed to complete it. Once the level was completed I was pretty much done with it.

There are a lot of levels to this with some 90 machines needing attention but once you have gone through the multiple levels there is no reason to return to them. The levels seem fairly random as well and don’t really progress in difficulty the way you would expect. Some levels are nigh impossible and then the next level is relatively simple. This really kept the game from having a cohesive feel as if you were progresses towards some goal.

The graphics were another area that was lacking.The animations were fast but there was not a lot of variety in them. Lets face it there aren’t too many ways for a machine to go ’boom.’ The sound on the other hand was very repetitive and almost ’cartoonish’. It can get annoying,  but to be honest, after a while, I didn’t even hear them anymore as there was nothing that stood out and grabbed my attention.

In regards to gameplay, it had a pretty good variety of different actions you had to take from switching things on and off, plucking strings, turning wheels and sliding up/down different fader switches. There is more than enough for you to do. Time management does enter in to this game as well in a big way.

Overall System Mania is entertaining at first trying to co-ordinate all the different things you are meant to do, but once you had completed the levels there wasn’t a lot to make you return and play this game over and over.