Game: Zuma’s Revenge
Platform: PC
Publisher: PopCap
Developer: PopCap
ESRB: Everyone
Genre: You spin me right round
Players: 1
What's Hot: Boss battles, some different level layouts
What's Not: Carpal tunnel-inducing gameplay
Review by: Toni Schwartz
Zuma’s Revenge is the successor to (surprise!) Zuma. Although there are some new features, the basic gameplay has not changed. It’s essentially a “match 3” game, but instead of the playing field being on a vertical plane (e.g. Bust-A-Move), the graphics give the appearance that you’re looking at the board from top down.
You control a frog that (usually) sits in the middle of the screen. Your frog is surrounded by a winding path that leads to a gold skull. When a level starts, a row of colorful balls follow the path towards the skull. Your job is to eliminate all balls before they get there by shooting your own balls and matching at least three of the same color. At first more and more balls will keep coming, and will only stop when you fill up the “Zuma bar”. It’s in your best interest to fill the bar up as quickly as possible.
Naturally, as the levels progress the balls head towards the skull faster and faster, with the path more tightly wound and confusing. Fortunately you have a little help in the form of special power-up balls, which do a variety of things. For example, one type of power-up temporarily reverses the direction of the balls’ path, while another momentarily slows the balls’ progress towards the skull. Fruit will randomly appear in one corner of the board, and obtaining it helps to quickly fill up the Zuma bar.
Most of the levels are very straightforward and have the same board, with the frog in the middle. It can feel a little boring after a while but fortunately, Zuma’s Revenge breaks up the monotony. In some cases, your frog will sit in a horizontal or vertical path on one side of the board. In other cases your frog will be able to hop between two lily pads situated on either side of the boards. It’s these little changes that help wake you up from the ho-hum feel of sitting, spinning, and shooting in one spot.
Although Zuma’s Revenge stays relatively faithful to the original in terms of gameplay, it does bring a very welcomed new feature: boss battles. This is easily my one of my favorite parts of the game. After each stage (ten levels each) you encounter a boss. Your frog sits in a horizontal path at the bottom of the screen while the boss is on a similar path at the top of the screen. Naturally you have to defeat him, all the while still doing your standard Zuma duties by preventing the balls from falling in the skull. Oh, and did I mention that you must dodge his attacks (and in later stages, his allies’ attacks) at the same time?
The game offers replayability in the form of Challenge Modes, Heroic Frog Mode, and the formidable Iron Frog Gauntlet. Heroic Frog mode features tougher versions of the levels you’ve beaten in Adventure Mode (standard story mode). In Challenge Mode, you have to beat a specific high score within a three-minute time limit to win trophies. Finally, the Iron Frog Gauntlet offers ten new and extremely tough levels.
True to its predecessor, Zuma’s Revenge is overall an entertaining game. Like many casual games (especially those made by PopCap), it starts off deceptively easy, but slowly progresses to a much more challenging and difficult game. At later stages, you’ll need some seriously quick reflexes and a keen pair of eyes to be able to catch the balls as they race rapidly towards the skull. Ironically, this leads to the biggest issue with both Zuma games, especially when dealing with frog-in-the-middle boards. The repetitive movements of spinning the frog in circles with your mouse can take its toll on your poor wrist, so Carpel Tunnel sufferers, you have been warned.
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