Bejeweled 2 Deluxe

Remember the olden days when you used to play connect 4 at your gran’s house, when you came to visit? If you don’t, you’re one sad loser and I’m sorry your childhood was filled with flesh-eating clowns and elderly binge drinking. Don’t worry, daddy didn’t love you, but I do; a whole lot.

In any case, playing connect 4 was awesome as it was a game with a simple premise, but with thoughtful and exciting gameplay. This goes to show that once again less is more. And that is exactly what PopCap Games brings to the table with their game Bejeweled and this sequel, cleverly dubbed Bejeweled 2.

*click to enlarge*

Basically, this is the game which created the “match 3” system on which hundreds of lesser able people shamelessly copied their game. It’s quite simple: When you align 3 or more gems of the same kind, those explode and disappear. You repeat this process until you ultimately fail; that’s it. As an added bonus, you can strive to complete 4 gems in a row, to make an exploding gem, destroying all adjacent gems or you can line up 5 to create a cube. When you match any one gem with this nifty thing, it will cast a mighty lightning strike upon all gems of the same kind and clear them from the game board. If that lightning should strike another special gem, those effects still apply, so you can create all sorts of combo’s to keep the gems going. That should be enough for you to understand the deep and complex mechanics of the game.

Lightning strikes as you line up a Cube.

Bejeweled 2 is presented in the web browser clarity it should be presented. A clean, simple interface and graphic style keep your mind and eyes on the one thing important in the game: the board. An 8 by 8 gem board, together with a time or progress bar is all you need to get you going. By the sideline you’ll also have a hint button for when you’re lost and a menu option. There are a few simple exploding effects and such, accompanied by the fitting sound for it, but it’s still in the simplicity state of mind.

To keep you playing, the starting menu offers you a series of modes: Classic, Action, Puzzle and Endless Mode, with additional hidden modes to unlock, such as Hyper Mode. In Classic you line up gems until no further moves can be made. Although this works well on its own, it does feel like you can only clear a set amount of moves, instead of continuing on skill. This (psychological) luck factor may cause some minor frustration, but the basics do offer a quality gameplay experience.

Action is the best mode as it adds a timer to the completion of gems, with accelerating time speed with each level. The higher the level you go, the faster the clock will run down on you and that puts an exhilarating fire to your shins.

Puzzle is just that: A series of puzzles, where you need to complete the gems in such a way that the game board is cleared. And lastly, Endless is fairly self-explanatory as well, as it is just a never-ending line up of gems, until you forget time itself.

Bejeweled 2 also offers hints, should you not grasp its complexity.

You can play these different modes, until you advance far enough to unlock new things, such as the frantic Hyper Mode. This is exactly like Action, but on meth and steroids combined. The board moves at dazzling speeds and the timer follows the same pace, so if you got stressed by Action, Hyper will own your world. A word of caution however: If you’ve been playing the fast-paced Hyper for a while, taking a step back to slower modes will frustrate you and might cause you some severe motion sickness. So stick to that mode in a playthrough or the others, but not combined.

In addition, Endless Mode doesn’t really offer a lot. Sure, it still sucks you into the highly addictive gameplay, but without a set goal, you won’t resort to it often. I suppose you’ll only turn to it, when you can’t be bothered to do anything else. Bear in mind though, that once you start playing, you’ll probably waste hours before you realize that this game will never stop. Seriously; this game kills so much time, it should be classified as time genocide.

But the most irritating flaw is the transition between levels via some sort of wormhole. This epileptic attack waiting to happen is downright nauseating and while it isn’t detrimental to gameplay, it’s really in poor taste and does put you off. Especially when playing in Hyper Mode, the fast transitions between levels will make you feel like you’re heading for Davy Jones’ locker. Hold on to your stomach contents or thar she blows, matey!

The last thing you see before seeing your lunch once more.

Bejeweled 2 isn’t a game you play when you feel like playing video games; it’s there solely to eat away at your life. When you feel like an adventure and quests, with complex plots and pressing buttons and all that stuff we go coocoo for, then Bejeweled will feel empty to your gaming lust. But if you’re even the slightest bit doubtful what your next quest should be and need to muck around for inspiration, then Bejeweled should be the first thing you need to pick up. As it’s made for accessibility, you can waste away hours and hours, as you wait for the next big thing. And that doesn’t mean it’s just a placeholder; you’ll want to play this game over and over, because it’s easy to start with and sucks you in to stay!

With a very severe case of “one more game”, Bejeweled 2 is a game that is virtually endless in quality time. Sure, it’s far from perfect, but it’s perfection in the casual genre it created for itself. The simplicity opens up an addictive and exciting game for anyone and everyone to enjoy. Don’t be alarmed with the casual aspect, as even hardcore tough guys can find challenges in a few modes and racing against the clock will have you sweating in your jammies. If nothing else convinced you, you can try out a sampler of the Bejeweled 2 glory on Facebook for free, you cheap binge drinking clown.

Also check out the video review for an alternate illustration

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed.