Mac|Life - December 2009

The name might remind you of an unpleasant side effect of drinking the water in Mexico, but this Zuma’s Revenge won’t make you run for the bathroom. Instead, you’ll be glued to your chair, clicking away at ever-harder levels in four fun game modes.

The sequel to Zuma doesn’t change the fundamental gameplay:

You’re a frog who shoots colored balls at an advancing train (or trains) of colored balls, trying to match three colors to make them disappear. The trains double back on each other, making it hard to get the right shot, and the balls just keep on coming until you rack up enough points to fill the Zuma meter. Then no new balls emerge from the start point, but you still have to clear all the balls on the board before they advance to the end point—or you lose.

To assist you, Zuma’s Revenge tosses in power-up balls, including three new ones not seen in the last game. You’ll get to explode parts of the train, shoot lasers, fire cannonball spray, eliminate all the balls of one color, slow down or reverse the train, and so on.

The frog doesn’t even stay fixed. In some levels, he jumps between two vantage points to shoot from. Other levels let the frog slide back and forth on a track. After every 10 levels you’ll fight a boss character, who showers you with obstacles that slow you down, make the balls wildly change colors, and more. The linear, 60-level Adventure mode doesn’t let you progress until you beat each level, but save points, free lives, and a generous continue system ebb the frustration.

Once Adventure mode is complete, you can play Iron Frog mode, and Heroic Frog, more difficult twists on the main game. Challenge mode offers one-off levels, where you try to achieve a set score within a time limit. The more you beat, the more are unlocked, 70 in all.

PopCap’s bright, tiki-inspired graphics and island music give the game polish, with the 3D balls seeming to glow against the backgrounds. We experienced a crash or two on our 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, but for the most part the experience was smooth.

The bottom line. Zuma’s Revenge is crammed with content, even without a multiplayer mode or a way to make your own levels. And it’s got the “just one more level!” addictiveness you’d expect from a PopCap game. The original Zuma sold 17 million copies for a reason, and Zuma’s Revenge is a hit too.—Susie Ochs

ZUMA’S REVENGE
Great Balls of Zuma

PopCap

www.popcap.com

Price: $19.95 requirements: 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo, Mac OS 10. 4. 11 or later, 1GB RAM

Four game modes. Extensive stats. Addictive gameplay. ESRB rating: Everyone.

Did we mention the addictive gameplay?

mac|life

RATED

GREAT

Zuma’s Revenge

All we wanna do is Zuma zoom-zoom-zoom.

> LUXOR
> BUST-A-MOVE
Déjà iPhOne

Luxor 1.0

MumboJumbo www.luxoriphone.com

$2.99

GReAT

Some of the App Store’s 12,000-plus games are new ideas conceived expressly for this new platform, while others are retreads of more familiar fare. Overnostalgic for the Neon ’90s, we were excited to play two recent remakes of classic puzzle games.

LUXOR. Combining elements from Zuma and Breakout, Luxor has you firing your own colored balls at advancing chains of other colored balls. You’re trying to remove balls from the chain by matching three or more of the same color. The chains move along tracks that twist and turn and double over each other, so you can’t always get a clear shot. And if you don’t clear them fast enough, they reach the end of the track—and you lose.

Luxor for the iPhone plays well, with 88 levels and sharp graphics and music. You can catch falling coins and power-up tokens that slow down or reverse the chains or give you

And Luxor supports the Plus+ gaming network, letting you challenge your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

BUST-A-MOVE. Taito’s Bust-a-Move, also known in Japan as Puzzle Bobble, resembles the 1996 Mac puzzle game Snood. You fire colored balls at a puzzle of colored balls, trying to match three and make them disappear. The balls gradually move down the screen, and if they reach the bottom before you clear the board, you lose.

Bust-a-Move has a totally forgettable story, plus bright graphics and two ways to fire
h all: with a simple tap or using a slingshot technique. We had a hard time aiming,
but if you fail a level and retry it, the game inserts a dotted line to help you line up
your shots better. Special pieces include
cannonballs that wipe out everything in their
path and exploding balls that take out an
entire color at once. Plus, you can bank shots
off the sides and even the top of the screen.
Bluetooth connectivity lets two players battle
in Versus mode (not supported by the first-
gen iPod touch), and Challenge mode is a
never-stopping barrage of puzzles.

The bottom line. Gamers who miss the ’90s will be glad to pocket these puzzles, but we had to ding Bust-a-Move for its long load times and semifrequent crashes at the menu screen.—Susie Ochs

Luxor’s marble- matching gameplay is set against an Egyptian background.

Bust ’em, before they move. Bust-a-Move 1.0.0 Taito tap.taito.com/en/ $4.99 SOLID

>>>Play Have Mac, will game l ame

mr. caparro on his skateboard in Venice Beach, California, July 2009. Bag: Boa flow, laptop backpack ($199.95 at booq.com). Model: mr. caparro, designer, DJ and event producer ( mrcaparro.com, family-affair. org). Photo: Erik Borzi ( erikborzi.com).