Collapse! - Xbox Windows Phone Review

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How much do Xbox Live Achievements affect your enjoyment of a game? The all-time Achievements enhance the gameplay experience, simultaneously rewarding progress and encouraging players to feel the game in new ways. Sometimes we see games whose Achievement difficulty doesn't match their casual nature – Doodle Bound and Harbor Principal to name only two. There are likewise poor games whose merely redeeming value is the easiness of their Achievements (hello, Butterfly!). And so comes Collapse! from GameHouse. A expert game with easy Achievements, but there is such a thing as too piece of cake.

Caput past the leap for our total review.

Basic gameplay

All screenshots taken from the iPhone version as the WP7 Marketplace shots don't represent how the game really looks.

Collapse! is a match-3 puzzle game in which blocks ascent from the lesser of the screen, threatening to reach the top and end the game. Touching groups of three or more adjacent aforementioned-colored blocks removes them. Unlike many games of this blazon, in that location is no philharmonic arrangement, every bit blocks don't automatically match up with others and disappear when they fall on them. But Collapse! retains an chemical element of strategy in that removing (for instance) the yellow blocks in betwixt 2 groups of blood-red blocks allows all of the red blocks to impact. The cherry-red blocks can then be eliminated in a single turn instead of two dissever turns, earning extra points in the process.

Puzzle quest

The meat of Collapse! centers around Quest manner. Quest features a rudimentary story near various lands becoming mysteriously polluted. To revitalize the environs, players travel around a large map, completing over lxx dissimilar levels along the way. The story itself is fifty-fifty more than basic than the ones found in Bubble Boondocks 2, merely I'll take a few curt story scenes over that game's too-frequent and inane dialogue any day of the week. And Plummet! doesn't await like a dog ate some crayons and then threw up on it, always a plus.

Game Types

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Several different game types brand up the Quest Mode. One time players consummate a level of any type, that mode is unlocked in Quick Play mode.

Classic: The basic Collapse! experience as I described above. Simple and fun.
Relapse: New lines of blocks come from both the top and lesser of the screen. If either ready collides, you fail the level.
Strategy: This works a lot similar Classic, except new lines only announced after the player makes a few moves instead of appearing as time passes.
Puzzle: These levels resemble the monster capturing puzzles in Puzzle Quest. Each puzzle level contains a unique arrangement of colored blocks. Players must friction match them in the proper lodge in order to knock them out. If whatever stray blocks remain at the end, you fail the puzzle.
Panic Attack: On meridian of the Archetype rules, blocks too fall from the sky onto the stack below. Matching five or more blocks prevents them from falling for a while.
Continuous: Basically a survival version of Classic mode. Play as long every bit you lot can without dying.
Countdown: A two-minute version of Classic that emphasizes scoring points as speedily every bit possible.

Bosses

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Each of the five lands in Quest mode is punctuated past a climactic boss boxing. These hostile creatures bound or wing effectually the screen and attack the player in various means, including raising columns of blocks, spraying ink clouds to obscure the screen, and turning the lights downwards to make everything darker. Boss altercations add a welcome dose of claiming and multifariousness.

The last boss battle works differently. It's sort of a reverse tug of war battle in which the loser gets hit by a bomb. The role player and boss alternating turns, making three moves per turn. If either party allows the blocks to accomplish the top of the screen, he or she loses one move. Matching big groups of blocks sends the bomb towards your opponent and vice-versa. This seems similar a tough fight, just smart utilize of powerups will send the bomb at the boss before he knows what hit him.

Powerups

There are 2 ways to use powerups: bear on the ones that appear randomly, or buy them from the shop. Unlike types of bombs can articulate the screen of certain colored blocks, all of the blocks in a specific radius, etc. Of form, the shop doesn't only give these things away for free.

Taking care of business

Complete levels to earn money. Every level has a Gold Medal objective that awards more money if completed. These objectives are mostly easy, such as beating time limits or coming together specific score goals. Notwithstanding, one objective significantly ratchets up the challenge: keeping the blocks beneath a certain line on the screen. Afterward in the game, that can be incommunicable to exercise without quick fingers and smart powerup use. Replaying early Puzzle levels is the fastest manner to make money, incidentally.

Spending spree

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On summit of purchasing powerups, the store also sells permanent upgrades and heroine. Expect, non the heroine. Upgrades increment the money earned from beating levels (buy that showtime!), the number of powerups players can comport, and the furnishings of different powerups. Gamers can also change their little blue character'southward outfit in the shop. It's cute creating a mermaid who wears a sombrero, but there aren't enough outfits to allow for much customization.

Achievements

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Now we come to the reason that virtually hardcore gamers will purchase Collapse! - Xbox Live Achievements. For whatever reason, ix of the game's 10 Achievements are simple goals that can exist completed during whatsoever normal game level. One of the goals requires players to beat a level without using powerups; you don't get any powerups in the offset Quest level and so it unlocks automatically! Of these 9 goals, the only 1 that requires any kind of attempt is "Huge Buster," for knocking out xl blocks at once. But it shouldn't take more than a few tries to set that upwards by allowing the screen to fill up with mostly one color of blocks during an early Quest level.

The 10th Achievement, for beating a Puzzle level under par, will take slightly longer than the rest since Puzzle levels don't pop upwards until the second major area of Quest. But even then, most players will take hold of all the Achievements in twenty minutes or less. Is that a good or bad thing? Just giving away every single Achievement kind of takes the sport out of it. At the very least, adding an Accomplishment for completing Quest mode would take really encouraged players to stick with the game for more than a few minutes. Due to that obvious omission, many people will only buy Collapse!, snag the Achievements, and move on to other pursuits.

Overall Impression

Plummet! epitomizes what Ken White potato of GameHouse told us about casual games: it'southward got uncomplicated touch screen controls, easy to grasp rules of gameplay, and it adds a bit of complexity and challenge equally the game goes on. Hardcore gamers may be put off by the casual trappings, just anyone looking for a simple puzzle game will accept fun. The game's Achievements are a missed opportunity to extend its playtime and increase enjoyment. But they're so darn easy, they certainly make Collapse! the perfect buy to increase ane's GamerScore. Just effort to keep playing for a while subsequently yous've got the 200 GamerScore, guys.

Plummet! costs $2.99 and there is a free trial. Get information technology here on the Marketplace.

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