Hands On With Neopets Puzzle Adventure
A few weeks back I had my second hands-on with Infinite Interactive's Neopets Puzzle Adventure. At first (and then again at second) look, Neopets is quite clearly a kid's game; but thanks to its birth at the hands of the people who brought us Puzzle Quest, this is one kid's game that I expect to see more than a few gamers playing surreptitiously. In fact, its blend of addictive puzzle gameplay and cutesy style make me think that Neopets might be a future Gamer's Closet star.
The main game is essentially a Neopets-skinned version or Reversi/Othello, with recognizable color-flipping gameplay that's as fun here as it's ever been. There's window dressing in the form of 12 different Neopets species that you'll choose from when creating a character, but for adult purposes Neopets works best as a well-packaged collection of puzzle games: you'll acquire petpets which, not unlike spells in Puzzle Quest, let you manipulate the board in non-standard ways such as flipping tokens or clearing a square. Additionally, the boards themselves will complicate gameplay as you progress by blocking out certain squares.
Other game modes offer other grid-based puzzle games to play. Training plays like a memory game, while Forging requires you to match tile colors. Quickdraw, my favorite, recreates the old shooting gallery mechanic - you'll have to draw the symbols you see on cards that whiz by, but watch out for red-colored symbols, which are the equivalent of shooting a "good guy" in the old pop-up shooting range.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure may not sound like the most adult game - and it isn't - but puzzle fans and anyone who enjoyed the OCD-inducing gameplay of Puzzle Quest should keep an eye out for our review of the game later this month. From what I've seen, Neopets is shaping up to be a promising addition to the puzzle landscape.
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 10 November 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: ds, infinite interactive, neopets puzzle adventure, pc
It looks kinda cute ( *o*)