Bejeweled 3 (PC, others bound to follow)

[merf]

In my old age I'm turning into a bit of a PopCap fan, in some ways the quality of their software is elevating them to the most consistent dev out there, and they make money too, so the production line will keep on coming.

This is another super polished long time coming title from them and anybody who things match 3 is dead should take a long hard look, the app store is full of these games now but the daddy returns and shows a brilliant understanding of the genre that others don't.

There is none of the silly twist stuff here, its a straight up swap system as usual. Some new special blocks introduced in the standard game if you manage to make an intersection match. There are loads of new variants of mini-game and mode which have varying degrees of success and again show great imagination.

All in all a superb package, polished to perfection, lovely sparkly graphics and sound and the ability to turn minutes into hours.

Can't wait for the inevitable iPad version.

[Bort]

I had a chance to give B3 a good session yesterday.

Gave all of the game modes a good play and only Butterflies stands out for me.

Coloured Butterflies fly up the board displacing the gems and you have to match or affect them by powerups to set them free before they reach the top and get eaten by a spider. You progressively get more butterflies on the board and you can get some mega combo's.

Poker is a fruitless mode. Instead of playing a normal match system you have to build deck of five cards (five moves/matches). Apart from your initial moves it falls to blind luck for building a deck.
That ultimately is the downfall for myself with B3. Where some popcap titles and other puzzle games have a backbone (be it skill, logic or progress based) to support the rote gameplay. B3 is just a shallow experience for myself that I have no desire to go back to.

Other modes include Quest mode (set missions using the other modes), Diamond mine (dig into the ground my matching low gems to collect items), Ice storm (Ice builds up from the bottom of the board, it get chipped away as you clear gems), Lightning (play against a timer), Zen (peaceful mode) and Classic.

[Bort]

Stuck with only B3 to play again yesterday.

Completed the Quest mode (very short) and put more time into butterflies, Zen, Classic and Poker.

The biggest irk is the death by no moves left on the board. It (almost) makes sense on Classic since matching is the only thing to do. It shouldn't be in Poker mode. Having the board reform is a feature that most other matching games have. If the game mode is bigger than the base matching gameplay it should be an implemented feature.

I find Poker mode irksome all over. It shouldn't just limit you to the major gems to score. If you could stack the secondary (and third and fourth etc) gems for hyper mega extended combos it would make for a more enjoyable experience. It's a real pain to be forced to sacrifice two, three or more matches for no pay off.

The game as a whole is very limited. Lots of slap on the face but nothing behind it. They spent over a year making this...