Bejeweled 2 PC

Paul Govan's review of Bejeweled 2. Subscribe to this column via RSS or Newsletter.

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Column:
Family Gamer

Format:
PC

Genre:
Minigames

Written on:
01/05/2009

Further reading:
Family Gaming Awards

A few days ago I installed Bejeweled 2 without ever having played the original game. I did try the original later on for comparison, but the repackaging of Bejeweled was well deserved and worked out nicely.

The graphics are awesome, the jewels now look as if they came from a jewelry store, there are nice graphic effects, and one really travels through a worm hole after finishing a level.

The goal remained the same, exchange the place of neighbouring jewels to make rows of three, four, or five alike jewels, which then disappear or leave especially blingy jewels with magic powers behind. Those extra powers blast a good number of neighbouring jewels into digital air or zap all jewels of the same kind when switching places.

I followed the recommendation in the game and started in classic mode. While that suited well for training I got confused and annoyed by two things. First, I have no idea what I need to do to prevent getting stuck without moves. Since the computer drops the new jewels into the playboard from the top the entire game is based on chance rather than clever thinking and acquiring skill, which is not typical for a PopCap game. And then there is the voice. Not only does it sound as if it tries to be the extortionist for my lost soul, it is also extremely pushy. When starting the game the voice commands 'Go!' and after finishing a level I get yelled at 'Get ready!'. Once in a while I earn an 'excellent' or 'incredible' and more often a word I cannot make out. My wife claims it is 'good', but I am still undecided between 'cool' and 'jewel'.

Before I got totally worked up about the 'no more moves' voice I switched to the more serene endless mode. Here I never run out of moves, but also don't get my high score recorded. I like that mode the best, because I can enjoy the absolutely fabulous background graphics and listen to the music that just never gets boring. I was not surprised to see that Skaven from the Future Crew is the composer. Some people really have it figured out.

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