This puzzler is a contradiction, a game so challenging it'll make you want to pull your hair out but in packaging so sweet it'll give you a toothache. Yet this wolf in kindergarteners clothing, with its ever changing gameplay in a harmless environment, has incredible appeal.
In Roogoo you play as the defender of Roo, a planet drained of its beauty by a corrupt king who hoards the colorfully shaped meteors that are essential to the life on the planet all for himself. How do you save planet Roo? By sorting the meteors through floating discs as they fall from the sky. Stars, cylinders and triangles drop from above and its up to you to turn the floating discs so they match up with the shape that's falling. Sounds simple, and at its core it is, but each level offers up something different.
Boogie Bunnies is essentially a match-three puzzle game, whereby lines of colored bunnies - occasionally dancing - slowly move down the screen. Before they reach the bottom and drown in a thin moat of water you need to match up three bunnies of the same color to take them off the board, gaining points, and eventually moving onto the next level. Bunnies can be shot up the board not just from the front, but also into side gutters and sideways from the edge of the board.
Poker Smash is a fast paced puzzle game with an overt poker twist. The game takes place usually on a poker table, but the backgrounds often change as your score increases. Throughout the game rows of five cards rise from the bottom of the table with your objective being to keep those from reaching the top of the table - a mechanic we've seen ad nauseum before. However, Poker Smash changes up the rules by now only allowing you to remove cards through the regular arrange three to five of the same in a row rule, but also by making poker hands such as a straight or flush. Making these authentic poker hands grants you bonus points. Even more points can be made if you chain together hands and rows of cards - it's a great system and one that allows Poker Smash to be more unique that it might otherwise have been.
In TiQal players must match blocks of different colors in groups of four or more. The objective is to eliminate blocks to avoid getting topped out as they slowly inch upward. The game play will be familiar to anybody who's played Tetris (everyone on the planet) but TiQal throws in enough wrinkles to make it at least feel like Tetris: Mayan Edition. A variety of themed Power Ups - jaguar strikes, spear attacks, blow darts, screeching monkeys - provide some much needed help by wiping out blocks, and also add to the Apocalypto-like vibe. The inclusion of a story line and excellent game presentation help set this title apart from other puzzle games but some glaring weaknesses mess up the fun.
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Terry Terrones (131)
- Review: Roogoo
- With rainbows, butterflies, hearts, stars and cutesy little characters the newly released Roogoo on Xbox Live Arcade is reminiscent of the Care Bears, if the Care Bears were sadistic monsters who liked to torture you.
- http://www.gameproarcade.com/article/85673/review-roogoo/
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