Zuma’s Revenge (sequel to Zuma) is an Xbox Live Arcade game available right now for 800 Microsoft Points and was published/developed by PopCap Games who are well known for such addictive titles like Peggle, Bejeweled and Feeding Frenzy. Needless to say I was anticipating a well made puzzler that will keep my hanging on and wanting more, did they pull it off?
Let me give you an insight on what the game is all about, you are controlling a moving frog that shoots various coloured balls at others moving around the screen. The aim is to match at least three balls or “stones” and keep doing this till you reach a target score; this will stop new balls respawning into the game zone. You must do this whilst they are moving towards a skull, which if they reach it will end the game so you’ll have to start that level again.
Adventure mode has you travelling around a map of an island and after clearing enough levels you’ll face a boss, defeat it to progress onto a new area. With a whopping 60 levels there’s plenty of game time to be had, not to mention the boss fights which are intelligently executed so that it feels more strategic than the standard levels. Despite every spiralling effort being intense (believe me there’s no time to be wasted) you get a sense of achievement upon completing each level because each one feels like it is set up for you to fail should you go off the boil and miss-fire regularly. Luckily the difficulty increases at a rate that as long as you’re learning new techniques you’ll keep up with the pace more often than not, and if you don’t then you can always retry.
A nice addition to the mix is “Spirits” that will give you extra in-game bonuses, but to enhance these Spirit animals you must earn medals, which you can earn for level completion, beating a set time or reaching a special spirit score. These spirits are very handy, there are four altogether; shot speed, bonus power-up balls (these are game-changers, especially if it’s a bomb or tri-bomb to blast you out of sticky situations), fruit appearance chance (these are worth bonus points) and increased level score (a percentage boost on your end of level point tally). I wouldn’t have completed many of the later levels without these to aid me in my journey and compared to the original Zuma these are the key ingredients to turn stressful moments into pure enjoyment.
Once finished you can go back to improve on your medal tally or high scores for any of the levels in adventure mode. This adds some major replayability that could honestly keep you busy for hours, you’ll be doing the classic “one more attempt” at beating a time or score, I’ve already done that and want to go do it again right now.
There are three other mini-modes, one of which is weekly challenge and it has you competing on a chosen level that you have to try set a high score on. Leaderboards will be fresh each time so even if you complete it in Adventure mode you’ll have to give it another shot. I like this because there’s that element of competition between any friends that also have this game.
Iron Frog is the toughest of the lot, ten challenging levels and if you fail any of them you start from right at the beginning. Needless to say this one had me frustrating but I think every game should have the little toughie for the best players to really test their skills, unfortunately for me I am not one of them. If you want to know I made it to level two and fully expect to not reach level ten, however it’s fun so I’ll keep on trying. Boss Rush a battle of epic proportions, taking on all the bosses in a row in the quickest time you can. Luckily you can fail at it lets you try that specific boss again, I liked it once but probably the weakest mode on the game.
With no Xbox Live features apart from Leaderboards, you’ll have to just compete for high scores if you want competition with your mates. For every downside there is an upside, albeit one that isn’t really linked to Xbox Live, however I feel it needs a mention, the colours used and the menus look vibrant in HD. Such clear graphical quality that is easily admired and for kids it’ll stimulate their minds with all the brightness (and of course the mental challenge if they’re old enough to play games).
Considering the original Zuma had me mentally drained at times, PopCap Games have kept the awesomeness of that and added some real helpful features to make it slightly easier for those who don’t have the best reactions or eye co-ordination to spot match-ups quickly. If you’ve played and enjoyed Zuma then this’ll be an instant purchase, but if you’re new to this then it’s a bit like Puzzle Bobble from back in the day. It’s certainly worth a purchase and you won’t regret it at such a reasonable price.
8/10