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Chime Review Microsoft Xbox360 XBLA

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  • Chime Review Microsoft Xbox360 XBLA

    Chime is a puzzle game that tasks players with systemically covering a square-based grid over the course of several minutes. It takes prominent design elements from titles like Tetris, Jewel Quest and Lumines and combines them into a fresh and innovative package.
    Chime screenshot.
    The player rotates their pieces and places them on the grid to form 3 x 3 blocks which they can then continue to extend (if fast enough) before the quadrilateral's shape becomes finalised. At this point it will be removed from play once a scanning timeline comes into contact with the selection and the corresponding section of the grid will then be marked as covered. The player has until the timer expires to complete as much of the board as possible, with time extensions awarded for reaching various coverage milestones along the way.
    Chime screenshot.
    Each of the five levels takes this central mechanic and adds its own flavour to the mix. A small, core selection of Tetris-like pieces are available across the whole game; which are further supplemented by stage-specific sets, each interconnecting in different ways. In addition each level has a differently shaped game board, placing some emphasis on a small number of basic strategies that begin to come into play once the player moves beyond simple block matching.
    Chime screenshot.
    Out of these two factors the primary differentiator is the different shapes that the player must interlink. Every time you progress to a new set it takes a little while to acclimatise to its unique patterns and it's here where the game rewards in terms of its longevity, lending each level its own feel and pacing. Chime's time limits are fairly generous, but trying to grow the blocks as large as possible before they become locked in place offers a nice impetus to proceedings that helps to prevent play from becoming too focused on the long term game and keeps the player connected to the moment.The first two levels start off very gently; and whilst still enjoyable it's a shame that proceedings don't shift up a gear until later, leaving only three remaining stages to really challenge the player. These grids have much more constrained shapes, with cut-outs and completely separated sections that make getting complete coverage that much more challenging. Due to these more awkward areas, assembling quads in the necessary locations is an altogether more interesting proposition, as the player has to exercise significant precision with their shape placement. It's not until these later layouts where the game starts to hit that sweet spot of making the player work for their points, with targeted shape allocation and careful balancing of the clock a necessity for attaining the highest levels of coverage.
    Chime screenshot.
    Whilst the latter half is where the mechanics really start to work well cohesively, the first portions of the game are still enjoyable thanks to Chime's fantastic ambience. The game utilises a simple, understated style, with a small number of level specific effects triggered when blocks are removed from play. Beyond that it keeps proceedings limited to a subtle colour palette, specific to the grid in question in order to create a clean, sophisticated look. This is complemented nicely by a minimal, electronic soundtrack, with new layers in each song's mix being introduced as the coverage level increases, and pieces on the grid triggering one shot samples as the timeline hits them. These two elements sit well together in the mix with some spellbinding tracks on offer such as Paul Hartnoll's hauntingly captivating effort for stage two and Markus Schulz's 'Spilled Cranberries', complete with accompanying pink and purple themed visuals making an appearance in stage four. The only down-point in this area is a nauseating number from the king of soulless electronica, Moby, that constantly blares out a horrifically auto-tuned vocal 'Ooh yeah!' over and over and over again. Barring said abomination it's the combination of quiet, aesthetically pleasing visuals and carefully constructed audio layering, so tightly coupled with the gameplay, that makes the player's time with Chime such an emotionally engaging activity.
    Chime screenshot.
    There is, however, a rough spot in the package with regards the implementation of the scoring hooks. Playing for high coverage percentages offers a very rewarding and challenging experience, but playing for score isn't nearly as compelling. When fighting for coverage the best strategy is often to skip around the board; gradually filling in the areas of the most difficulty, then working your way outwards, as once a block has been removed from play and the timeline has successively passed over any remnants a sufficient number of times all the remaining pieces on the board will be removed, clearing these areas for new block construction. One side effect of this is to reset the multiplier counter, which is incremented each time the player creates a new quad. So, if playing for score the simplest and most efficient method is simply to create lots and lots of blocks of the smallest size (3 x 3) over and over again. Trying to make the blocks as large as possible is actually a bad move because it not only spaces out your remaining left-over sections, making it harder to prevent them timing out, but also keeps your score multiplier far lower than it would otherwise be, for the exact same level of coverage. Added to this is the fact that there's no scoring component to the coverage bonus and that blocks that are created on an uncovered part of the grid are worth the exact same points value as those on an already covered section, ultimately leaving you with a set of rather dull and uninteresting strategies for topping the leaderboards.

    This issue doesn't significantly detract from an otherwise highly enjoyable puzzle game however thanks to the consummate presentation and the fact that it still offers a rewarding experience in trying to top your coverage bests (even if the game doesn't keep track of them for you). There's unfortunately no multiplayer component on offer; which is a shame as the mechanics have the potential to provide some innovation in this area, but Chime is still a great example of how to breathe new life into an old genre. Despite the odd shortcoming, it offers a fundamentally strong set of mechanics that the developers would do well to expand upon in future releases.
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