Good skull

    You know, sometimes you really want recklessness. For example, take and scorch all the skulls on the board at once, turning the usual signs of death into a trump “+5”. Or do it even more insanely: once, and declare Puzzle Quest the best casual game of 2007. And do not care that the yard is only October and can still change.
    The trouble, however, is that the price for recklessness is sometimes too high. So, your opponent can use trump skulls by literally two kicks driving your hero into the grave. As for the game of the year ...
    No, I'm not afraid that something better than Puzzle Quest will be released before January. Just Puzzle Quest itself, with all its casual essence, is wrapped in a too intellectual shell. Ordinary secretaries may not like this ...



    Stand in a row
    Is it worth mentioning that the word “Warlords” in the name of the game is not without reason, and even “register” and “trademark”? It’s probably worth it - but only in the context of the fact that Puzzle Quest refers to the famous strategic series only by the geography of the game world, the names of heroes and the nomenclature of magic creatures. From the point of view of the gameplay, there is nothing in common between the new product and the hits of past years.
    Although the essence of Puzzle Quest is extremely simple, there are so many interesting possibilities around it that it’s not so easy to decide where to start the story about the game. Nevertheless, we begin with the essence.
    You may have ever met Bejeweled or its counterparts. This casual project is very popular, it has spread across all gaming and near-game platforms: PCs, consoles, cell phones, PDAs. Its principles are simple: there is a certain rectangular field littered with figures of various kinds. There are few varieties of figures - 5-7. The goal of the gamer is to swap adjacent figures vertically or horizontally to make chains of 3-5 identical figures. These chains disappear, gamers are added points, the top figures fall down to the vacated space, the general lack of figures is compensated by pouring it from above.
    So, in general terms, Bejeweled and the clones look like. But not Puzzle Quest.

    Life in chains
    To begin with, moving the figures on an 8x8 field with their alignment in chains is only one, albeit the main, element of the game. It symbolizes the battle. Or captivity of the enemy. Or the invention of a new spell. But more often than not - just a fight.
    And the battle, as you know, is inconceivable without an adversary. Thus, not only the player, but his opponent, in turn, is engaged in moving the figures on the 8x8 board ... The meaning of these manipulations in Puzzle Quest is as follows ...
    4 colors of round bars on the board are 4 colors of mana, which is necessary for spells. Chains of round pieces, which are made up by players and which are removed from the board, add this mana to them in the “bins”.
    In addition to mana, the figures on the board are: money icons - add money to the treasury, purple stars - add “experience” points to the hero. Finally, there are skull icons on the board. Gathering the will of the player in chains, the skulls directly cause damage to his opponent.
    Both opposing players have a certain amount of life points. The higher the level of the heroes or the enemy, the more “life” he has. It `s naturally. As soon as the points of "life" (with the help of tortoise chains and spells) are reduced to zero - the game ends with the victory of the surviving fighter.



    The world around
    Everything is wound around this base. Heroes of several classes, each with its own winning strategy and spell preferences. A role-based system that takes into account the growth of characteristics, the hero’s presence of trophies, the quality of memorized spells and the presence of friends and companions - all this wealth on the battlefield translates into numerous modifiers, bonuses, additional options for manipulating figures ...
    In addition, do not forget about the plot, which is very successfully overlaid on the map of the kingdom in the form of cities, castles, abandoned ruins, caves and other secret crypts. The matter from which the plot is woven is quests, most of which include one or a series of battles in various enemies.
    The variety of opponents in Puzzle Quest is pleasantly pleasing: rats, wolves, orcs, wizards, knights - each of them has their own fighting style, their favorite tricks and skills. Pick up a key to each of them, oh, how easy it is.
    Fortunately, Puzzle Quest, as befits a casual game, is extremely merciful to the defeated, giving them a second, third ... yes, even a hundredth chance.

    Contrary to the
    Internet community, Casual has already managed to evaluate Puzzle Quest, since the game is small in volume and distributed according to the principle of shareware. Enthusiastic responses “I sat for three days without stopping,” “turned on, went out, I looked - 5 hours passed” and “played all night” are heard in one forum or another.
    This, of course, cannot but rejoice - like any appearance of the next high-quality and interesting game.
    Confuses another.
    The game is positioned as casual. However, enthusiastic responses are heard so far from well-formed gamers, who can not be suspected of casualness. And even the information about the crazy success of Puzzle Quest on consoles and handheld platforms does not dispel this perplexity.



    Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
    Genre puzzle with role-playing game elements
    Publisher D3Publisher
    Publisher in Russia New Disk
    Developer Infinite Interactive
    Required Pentium III-1000 +, 256+ Mb, 3D
    Recommended C2D-4300 +, 2048+ Mb, GF 8600GT + PC
    platform , Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Wii, Cell Phones
    MultiplayerLAN, I-net
    Difficulty with elements of randomness
    Knowledge of English is desirable

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