Bejeweled 3 — I’m A Good Doggie

Is it just me, or has there been an over-saturation of Bejeweled and its clones lately?  It makes it easier to sift the wheat from the chaff, that’s for sure.  Bejeweled 3 is shiny, but is it wheat or is it chaff?

First, a quick rundown of the series.  Bejeweled first came out with Normal and Timed Modes.  Normal Mode had players keep making groups of three (or more) gems either horizontally or diagonally until there’re no more moves on the board.  Each match fills up a bar and when the bar is filled completely, the player goes up a level.  Normal Mode relies almost entirely upon luck to keep going.  Sometimes you’ll score a million points, sometimes you’ll score ten thousand.  Timed Mode filled the bar half-way at the start of each level.  Matches still filled the bar, but the bar decreased over time.  When full, it acted the same as in Normal Mode.  When empty, the game was over.

Bejeweled 2 featured Classic (same as Normal) and Action (same as Timed) Modes, as well as the new Puzzle and Endless Modes.  Puzzle Mode consisted of various puzzles that the player had to solve, and Endless Mode was rigged to not have a clock, and to always have at least one match on the board.  It was designed to literally be endless.  There was also a substantial graphical upgrade over the original, and new gems were created to aid the player.  Secret Modes were available too, apparently.

Other variants have been released by PopCap since then.  Bejeweled Twist altered the method of swapping gems, but was basically the same as Bejeweled.  Gyromancer was Bejeweled Twist with a story, released as a collaboration between PopCap and Square-Enix.  Bejeweled Blitz was a variant of Timed/Action Mode that was developed for Facebook and then released normally.  This list doesn’t even take into account games that other companies released such as the Puzzle Quest series.

(And before I go any further, Bejeweled itself is a clone of a Russian game, but unfortunately the Russians tend to get screwed when it comes to receiving credit for their games.)

Bejeweled 3 consists of eight different modes of gameplay.  Along with Classic Mode, the game features:

-Lightning Mode, which is Bejeweled Blitz, remade for real gamers.  Lightning Mode allows skilled players the ability to increase the timer by matching special jewels that randomly appear.  Blitz, meanwhile, featured a strict one minute time limit that was generally unable to be extended, perfect for Facebook gamers.

-Zen Mode, which is just Endless Mode, supposedly reprogrammed to help people achieve their centre of balance or something hokey like that.  I don’t have a problem with people who meditate, who care about their chi, and who can actually achieve a true state of bliss by sitting zazen* on a rug, but it seems like such an odd thing to include in a Bejeweled game.  Is someone going to buy this software just so that they can meditate?  I would think that they could just light some incense or burn some scented oils instead of turning on their computer, activating Steam, and loading Bejeweled 3.  It’s kind of distracting to be matching jewels at the same time you’re practicing your breathing.

-Quest Mode, and this one feels more like they’re keeping up with the Joneses rather than coming up with something fresh and new.  Every puzzle game has a Quest Mode these days, and some are more developed than others.  The closest that the Bejeweled series had ever come to a Quest Mode was Gyromancer.  In Bejeweled 3, Quest Mode consists of a series of puzzles (just like Puzzle Mode in Bejeweled 2), but unlike most quests, there is no story involved.  Once a series of puzzles is completed, an artifact is restored, and there are five to restore in all.  That’s it.  The artifacts are only there to show you that you’re completing the puzzles.

There are also four “secret” modes, but I wouldn’t consider them secret if the game provides instructions to unlock them.

-Diamond Mine is the most fun of the four new modes that have been introduced, considering I’ve gotten very, very good at it in the short time I’ve been playing the game.  Basically, jewels are matched in such a way that a layer of dirt at the bottom of the screen is chipped away and various money and artifacts are unburied.  There is a time limit involved, but the time limit is less strict than in Lightning Mode, and can be increased when a certain amount of dirt is cleared away.

-Butterflies is a new mode where butterflies fly up the screen and must be matched before they reach the spider at the top.  The music featured in Butterflies is the best in the game, and I wish it were available to download.

-Ice Storm reminds me a little of some of the puzzle modes in Tidalis, but puts a different spin on things.  Columns of ice drift up the screen and then gradually freeze the board.  The game is over when a column completely freezes over, but a vertical match will shatter the ice.  A horizontal match will hinder the ice a little.  It can be frustrating to play if there is only one hard-to-see match available on the board, but then you could say the same about all the other modes.

-Poker is my least favourite of the new modes.  Basically, you make five matches to assemble a poker hand made up of the colours you match.  After a while, certain poker hands are not allowed, and if such a hand is created, the player has an equal chance of either losing the game or continuing.  If the player is lucky enough to continue, another poker hand is considered forbidden, and this continues until the game is finally over.

The graphics have experienced another significant upgrade since the second game, and the music is certainly amazing for a puzzle game, especially the music that plays during Butterflies.  I know I’m harping on something I already said, but I really wish a soundtrack could be released for the game, because I think some of the music stands well on its own.

Now most of the games I play possess an epic story that tries to keep players interested for long after the game might’ve otherwise worn out its welcome, but what do games like Bejeweled 3 have?  A list of high scores.  Really, that’s it.  The only thing keeping people playing this game is the promise that it’s possible to beat your old high score.  If on your second attempt at playing Classic Mode, you scored 1319100, then surely you should be able to score at least that much, maybe more the next time, right?

I can’t meditate with all these damn explosions!