Bejeweled/2 Game Review (Palm/Pocket PC)
Kiss goodbye to any hope of mobile productivity with these addictive games.
Review by urban75 for Digital-Lifestyles, 25th April, 2006

So you've shelled out for your new smartphone/PDA and you're ready to watch your productivity soar as you strut around with an office in your pocket.

With all that wireless connectivity, built-in Word compatibility and email/texting onboard, your new purchase is going to turn you into a lean, mean mobile-working machine.

And then some bastard beams you Bejeweled.

Bejeweled is a ridiculously addictive game by PopCap Games, with two versions offering endless time-wasting potential for the easily distracted.

Like most annoyingly compelling games, Bejeweled is dead simple to play and takes seconds to learn.

The gameplay is disarmingly straightforward: just tap adjacent pairs of coloured gems to swap them to make matching horizontal and vertical lines of three or more. And that's just about it.

In the original Bejeweled (available on Palm, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile) there's an additional timed mode to add a frantic air to the gameplay, while its sequel, Bejeweled2 (available on Palm and Pocket PC), ramps up the bells and whistles offering four play modes, bonus play modes, explosive Power Gems, Hyper Cubes and Time Bombs and arcade-style noisy effects (which can be turned off).

On both versions, the graphics are smartly done, the interface is simple and the game ran as smoothly as a freshly-talcumed baby's bottom on our Sony Clie TH55, Palm Treo and i-mate JAM test units.

Perhaps it's because we're a bit old school innit, but we preferred the no-nonsense simplicity of the original Bejeweled over the whizz bangery of the later version, but both games remain cunningly addictive. Install at your peril!

You can download trial versions of both games from astraware, with prices ranging from $19.95 (£11.20, €16.2) to $14.95 (£8.40, €12.15) , depending on the platform.

There's also a free basic web version of the game here, and a downloadable Deluxe version for the PC for $19.95.

FIVE STARS

More info:
Astraware

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