Click on ad below to get FREE music downloads of all your favorite music!
Editor's Choice Games
PopCaps's Bejeweled 2 and Zuma
Reviewed by Charlene Jones
I am not a computer gamer. I am not addicted to computer games. Well, that is, er, um, (shuffle feet), I, uh, am not REALLY addicted to computer gaming. (Jingle coins nervously with hands in pockets.) You see, I could quit at any time if I really wanted to quit. (Red faced, deep sigh) Ok; I'm hooked on Bejeweled 2 Deluxe. And maybe Zuma Deluxe. But that's all, REALLY.
Do you know how embarrassing it is for me, Charlene Jones, Executive Editor of Computer Times, Miss Intellect, Miss Calm, Cool, Collected, Literary Snob to admit that I am a GAMER? Ooooh.....I said it. It's out in the open now. There is no going back. PopCap has done it to me in a way that I would never have thought possible.
It started out innocently enough. I was up late one night, working. (I mean, come on, get real. Is the Executive Editor EVER going to admit she was surfing the Web at three in the morning? There it was; right out in the open for God and everyone to see as soon as I brought up AOL: the offer, that awful, tempting apple of the Garden of Eden, the offer to play a FREE on line version of Bejeweled 2 Deluxe. "Hey, I don't even know what Bejeweled #1 is," I thought, in my ignorance. Ahhhh, ignorance is bliss sometimes. I clicked, ever the innocent. Then I played the game. Over and over and over and over and over. Well, I guess you get the picture. Then I saw the offer on PopCap's Web site to play other games on line for FREE, and I did. Not once. Not twice. Oh no. Every night for weeks, Terrance Kibiloski, CT's editor, would see my haggard, tired look and sympathetically ask, "Another bad night?" The dark circles under my eyes grew darker as I dragged across the floor. Then, late one afternoon, when I thought the coast was clear, I fed my addiction with what I thought would be a quick game of Bejeweled 2.
He inquired, "What was that noise?"
I forgot to turn the volume of the computer to mute, so I hastened to correct the situation, but not before he came closer and saw the computer screen.
"What's this?" "Was that where the sound was coming from?"
What do you say when caught red-handed? It's against my nature to lie, so I answered evenly and suavely, "Oh, it's just a little game I found the other night through an AOL click through." "I thought we might review it for the paper."
And then it happened. He had to come over and see for himself. In disbelief he stared at the screen in front of him. "This is a GAME!" "You've been playing a computer game!" Then his Polish, male light bulb really grew bright. "That's why you've not been sleeping for the past several weeks!" You've been playing Bejeweled 2 all night!"
As if that weren't enough, he had to pick up the phone and tell my children, whom I would NOT allow to play computer games or Nintendo or Atari when they were growing up. I'll never hear the last of it now. Everyone knows. The sad part is, I don't really care anymore. Just give me another PopCap game. Hurry! Bejeweled 2 Deluxe. Or Zuma Deluxe . I admit it. I'm hooked.
What can I tell you about Bejeweled 2? That it has a screen of cascading various sized jewels that you match three in a row to dissolve? That more jewels flow down to fill in the spaces and make new arrangements? That a success "meter" at the bottom of the screen fills in until you've reached the next level, which has increasingly more difficult time levels? Or that four in a row will make a "power" gem that sparkles and bedazzles you until you team it up with like kind to make it "pop" for extra points? Or maybe that five in a row will form a "hyper cube" that looks like it was zapped by a disco ball current and when you use it you get mega points for every jewel form like it on the board? Nah. I won't tell you about Bejeweled 2. You'll just have to play it for yourself online at www.popcap.com or buy it for $19.95 and get better graphics, a timed and untimed version of the game, plus a puzzle that makes Rubik's Cube look like Chinese Checkers. If you are into keeping score, there is a record keeper for each player with the best scores. Is this where I admit I am just shy of 300,000? What a disgrace! It's enough to drive me to Zuma Deluxe!
Zuma Deluxe is not anything like Bejeweled 2. The sound effects sound like billiard balls hitting each other. The brightly colored balls snake across the screen toward the menacing Golden Skull as you direct the balls with a click of the cursor to form at least three in a row to explode and wipe out the balls. Specially marked balls flash and if "hit" will slow down the snaking chain of balls, reverse the chain for a second or two, or, if enough points have been earned, make the entire chain back up in a "Zuma" move. Variations of background and snaking directions keep the action exciting, and- what can I say- addicting!
Will life ever be the same after PopCap? I wonder if they will make me wear a scarlet "A" on my back from now on? Check out PopCap games and let me know at exedctimes.com if we need to form an online support group. I'm "GAME!"
