Honeybeat

Thursday, 27 December 2007 00:00

I hadn't really heard about Honeycomb Beat before, so it was going to be a whole new experience.

As like most puzzle games, it starts off with simple ones that require minimal brain power, but as you progress, it gets more taxing on the old grey matter. There are some useful tutorials to get you started on how the game works and once you get started, it all becomes so natural.

You have so many 'beats' to clear a stage and with over 200 stages, that's a lotta beats .. although, the game doesn't actually rely on you keeping tempo with beats. The idea is to hit certain 'beats' on a honeycomb to clear all the coloured panels, when you click a panel, the surrounding panels change.

Just when you think you've got the hang of it, the next level of puzzles add a bit more confusion and you need to rethink your moves. With only so many 'beats' to clear the stage, it takes a while to figure it out in the later stages, you can take more than the required moves, but your score is affected.

The DS is ideal for these kind of games, there's nothing like spending 10 minutes or even an hour getting indulged in a good puzzle game and this is one of those. Puzzle mode will keep you occupied for ages with its 20 levels or 'Area's' as they're known with 10 stages in each Area.

Then there's Evolution mode, it's kind of like Tetris, but not in the way of blocks falling down yada yada, the honeycombs scroll up and you have to clear the lines. It's the same principle as puzzle mode in the way of clearing lines, but you can clear lines of either colour and not just grey. 10 levels of Evolution mode extend the gameplay even further, giving you another excuse not to put the game away after just 5 minutes.

Getting so many points and clearing stages unlock new things like backgrounds, music and visuals, so rather than the game changing the way it looks, you can choose. The only problem with games like this is replayability, once you've done the puzzles, there isn't much point in doing them again, but it's good fun while it lasts.

7.5