Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (8.4/10)
Tetris mania on Gameboy. Even though puzzle games have been around for a while, Gameboy Tetris was the beginning of the addictive puzzle games (at least it was for me). Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords from Infinite Interactive (big thumbs up) is one of the latest games in this category. Before you continue reading; Surgeon Generals Warning: game is highly addictive, beware 
The Story (7/10)
Even though the game supports different game play types (these are; multi player, instant action, or quest mode), I will be mostly talking about the story (story) mode. You start your game as one of the four classes. These are Warrior, Knight, Wizard and Druid (which are pretty much the standard RPG classes). Once you decide your characters name and class (also their portrait), you will find yourself at the World Map. This is the map you will use to move around from different locations.
When you start a new game, you will be greeted by Queen Gwendholyn (who will set you on your combat training and first quests) at the Citadel of Bartonia, which is your home town. At the beginning everything is usual. However there are rumors of undead and other foes. You set out to inspect these events and learn more about them. Once you progressed enough, you find out that there is a dark force behind all the unusual happenings and you start investigating these events, and try to find and destroy the bad guy. It is pretty much the standard RPG story.
The Gameplay (10/10)
Game has a great tutorial system, which walks you through every aspect of the game. It takes you about 5 minutes to understand the game dynamic, in 15 you are very comfortable, give it an hour and you become an expert (meanwhile you are hooked, good luck running errands . However, it takes a long time to really master the game. I wouldn’t go as far as comparing Puzzle Quest with Go or Chest, but some planing and thinking ahead helps you big time. There is no time limit in game, therefore, you can take your time to think about the effects of your move, calculate your position.
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Puzzle Quest is not only a puzzle game (that one is called Bejeweled), it has a huge RPG side. As you start playing, your character (their hero) gains experience from completing quests and beating opponents. As you gain levels, you gain new abilities and spells. It would be best for you to start using your spells as soon as you learn them, they make a big difference. There are many enemies that you can’t beat without the help of your spells (or perhaps I am not a very good at this, who knows). You can also learn different (and very powerful) spells from captured enemies. To capture an enemy, you have to build a mage tower in your Citadel. There are about 7-8 different structure types you can build, which gives you new abilities. For example once you build certain types of structures (of course they cost gold, nothing is free you know), you will be able to capture prisoners, train mounts, forge items, improve your skills or research spells.
There are many Citadels in the game, which you can all capture. However, let me remind you, capturing a Citadel is not very easy, especially the Elf ones. Once you capture them, they will provide you with gold every week. This sounds like a great deal, right? Not really, you get the gold only if you visit that Citadel. You can imagine as the game progresses, you move different parts of the map, and do not visit the Citadels on previous parts of the map.
Throughout the game you can also find, capture, forge or buy items for yourself. These items gives you extra abilities or increase your existing ones. Some items have minimum level requirement, therefore as you gain move experience and become higher level, you will be able to use stronger items. You will also find runes around the map and using these special runes, you can create your own items. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of combinations for different items with unique properties. As you get better and better runes, you will be able to create more powerful items. You can create items at any one of your Citadel.
The Graphics (8/10)
Whole game is in 2D, therefore graphics are pretty straightforward. Basically you will be seeing 2 screens most of the time: First one is the World Map, which is a pretty blend map (it would have been great if the map was dynamic with many things going on all around the Kingdom).
Second screen is the actual game screen, where you battle your foes. This screen is basically gives you information about yourself and your opponent, as well as showing the game table. There are some nice spell effects, which I believe also carries a bug, once in a while those effects slows the game for couple seconds. Again it would have been great if our portraits in this screen were a bit dynamic (I would like to see my enemy in fear as I get close to finish it off, yay!).
Sound (7/10)
Sounds in Puzzle Quest is just okay, there are some effects for spells or things that happen on the map, but other than that you should not expect marvelous sound effects. Like I said, they are OK.
The Music (10/10)
I have to admit, the music of this game is pretty amazing. At some times it sounds like you are part of the LOTR. It is masterfully done, and fits perfectly to the gameplay. I wonder, if they will release the soundtracks as MP3 downloads, I would surely get it (hey you guys at the Infinite Interactive, do you listen?).
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is addictive, it is fun, it is challenging, and it has a progressive gameplay (what more do could you want from a game, huh? tell me). I have been hooked up for a long time now. Just because of this game, I keep my PSP with me almost all the time. Do I need to get the BumbleBee (she is my car) washed? Great, I play couple rounds of Puzzle Quest. Do I need to wait for a friend for a meeting, guess what. Also multiplayer part is great too, you can play deathmatch style with your friends.
Before I go to bed for today, I want to go and play my Level 50 (which is the level cap) Wizard for the final challenge of fighting Lord Bane (he is the final Boss, who is responsible for creating all this trouble in the peaceful land, lol).
Of course there could be improvements in the game. We would all love to have more interactive/dynamic events in the Kingdom. Gameplay can also be juiced up a bit. Is this why there will be a new version of Puzzle Quest coming this year?. We will find that out. New game will be called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and looks like it will have a hexagonal gameplay instead of rectangular one. I am not sure if that is a good idea, I suppose we will all see soon. Happy gaming mates…
Tags: Game Review, Puzzle Quest