Game Reviews - Indews

There are many addictive puzzle games out there. I can remember some that I had spent hours on at a time. I had spent months mastering games like Tetris, Dr. Mario, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and, more recently, Noah's Ark. However, MiXem Deluxe does not fall in the same category as these games.

It starts out as a decent game. You have to mix colored blocks in order to make new blocks, which can be put in a line of three or more in order to clear those blocks. Anyone who has taken an art class should be able to figure it out. The problem is that it's the same thing over and over.

There are three types of game: endless, time attack, and depth quest. If it isn't obvious, an endless game is one where you play until you lose (the blocks reach the top of the screen). A time attack game is one in which you have to get as high of a score as possible in 3 minutes of play time. Finally, depth quest is a game where you have to clear so many rows before you lose. It starts with a goal of 10 rows, and when that's beat, guess what you can choose to play with a goal of 20 rows. Hold your gasps, people. Guess what happens when that's complete. 30 rows! You see where I'm going with this. There are very few changes over the period of a game.

I can't sit here and bash a game for an entire review, though. I did like the use of the right mouse button. It doesn't happen very often and it's good to see a change. It's also original. There are too many knock-offs on the market these days, but Mooktown is really coming with something that is creative. There's also the graphics. For a puzzle game, these are fantastic. They were very impressive.

I also liked the fact that you can turn down the volume. This was because the music sounds very closely related to the theme song to Sex and the City (not that I ever watched it!). Two minutes into playing and I was reaching for my Nate Dogg CD.

Overall, I would recommend "rent the game" or "try out the free demo". Check it out at http://www.mooktown.com/pc_gameslist.html.