review!
The original Puzzle Quest was one of the most addictive colour-matching games around. Now the sequel is here, and it's even better. We haven't been to bed for three days! Can't...stop...playing!
You match the coloured blocks to build up mana for your magical attacks. The more colours you match, the more spells you can cast. You can also match armoured gauntlets that let you use weapon attacks. Best of all are the skulls. Match these to deliver an instant dose of pain to whatever beefy beastie you're fighting against!
In between gem-matching rounds, you're free to explore the game world. You can meet characters, buy new items or upgrade your weapons, and even discover new side quests. Portals link the different areas, so there's not too much boring walking around, and you can tell the game to show you the way to the next stage of any quests you're doing, so you'll never get lost!
The single player story will last you for ages, but you can play against friends as well. This is a good idea, since the game sometimes feels like it's cheating, by giving your opponent suspiciously good luck as the gems fall down from the top of the screen. Playing against a human player means you can at least be sure that if they beat you, it was down to skill!
The game board itself looks pretty boring, even though it's really cool when you set off a massive chain reaction of gems. The characters are great though, and when you do a weapon attack you get a great animation that brings a really exciting comic book feel to the battles. All the monsters are suitably nasty, and it's worth reading the text when you speak to other characters - sometimes it's really funny!
Quest for the best!
Just like the first game, you create an adventurer and then set off to explore a fantasy kingdom full of monsters and wizards and green slimy blobs that want to eat you. It's a lot like a role-playing game, but there's a twist. Everything you do in this game takes the form of a match-three puzzle. You know, where you have to swap coloured gems around to get three in a row. This is how you bash down doors, it's how you search for treasure, but most of all it's how you fight all the crazy, creepy creatures that stand in your way!Level Up!
Wicked Weaponry!
New weapons can be earned as you level up with experience from your adventures, or bought and sold in shops. Each weapon has different stats, and some can only be used by certain character types. Barbarians can swing giant clubs around, while only Sorcerers can use a magic staff. Weapon attacks are a great way to soften up your opponent if there are no decent gem moves on the board.
Puzzle Quest 2 is available for Nintendo DS and on Xbox Live Arcade. The Xbox version is cheaper - just 1200 points, or around ten pounds - and playing it on a big telly really shows off the wicked artwork. But the DS version fits in your pocket, and this is the sort of game you'll want to take everywhere with you!
