Here is Competition 3rd place winner : Balthier’s review of Zuma’s Revenge (PC)
Congratulations to Balthier on a job well done.
Enjoy the read and let us know what you thought of it
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Zuma’s Revenge! (PC)
Zuma is back, and better than ever. What is Zuma, you might say? Well, in case you missed this old gem, Zuma was a puzzle-action game developed by the genius PopCap (the same creator of Plants vs Zombies) and based on an old puzzle game called Puzzloop.
The goal is simple, you control a frog (who usually just sits in the middle of the screen) and you aim at the endless balls that come on a designed path, and for every match of 3 or more balls of the same color, they are destroyed. This is how you progress through the level, but it’s not all that simple. There are scoring techniques, fruits, power-ups and plenty of more things to help (or complicate) your journey just a little bit.
Zuma’s Revenge plays much better than it’s previous entry, with better graphics, sounds, music and replay value. Also, it’s a lot easier for beginner to be able to actually finish the main game this time.
Zuma’s Revenge offers 4 modes of gameplay: Adventure, Challenge, Heroic Frog and Iron Frog. Adventure is the main game, with 60 levels, and 6 bosses (totally new to the Zuma series). There’s plenty of challenge in this mode, but it is a lot easier and at the same time friendlier than the old Zuma.
By finishing the Adventure mode levels, you unlock them on the Challenge mode. On this mode you get to play the level, but this time there’s a timer AND a score goal to be met. This mode can be quite fun and addicting, I warn you.
Also upon finishing the main game, you unlock Heroic Frog and Iron Frog modes. Heroic Frog is like the harder (HARDER!) version of Adventure Mode, and will sure please old time Zuma fans, being very challenging (kinda like the old Zuma). Iron Frog is a new mode, with 10 unique levels (not found in the Adventure Mode), but there is a catch: you have to beat them all in a sequence and without loosing a single life. Yep, hard as hell (as we like!).
The graphics this time took a big leap from the old Zuma, with gorgeous backgrounds and overall better and nicer effects. I specially like how the new Zuma balls are designed, they look very funny indeed. The music also is pretty good, and the sounds (as usual in PopCap games) are quite ear pleasant and rewarding (in the sense that they really add to the game, like when you’re doing some combos you can hear the pitch of the sound effect increase with each combo, stuff like that).
Overall, this game is a blast. It has quality written all over it. The graphics are good, the story (the boss lines, specially) are just hilarious and the replay value is over the top. PopCap has done it again, amd if you happen to like puzzle games, don’t even hesitate to AT LEAST give the demo/trial a try. You won’t regret it.