I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the huge, blow-your-mind games that take hours upon hours to get through. Like Bioshock. Like Civilization IV. Like F.E.A.R. But at the same time, I love the silly casual games too. Sometimes all I need to unwind is some quick play, nothing too fancy, a short puzzle, something I can load up, play for fifteen minutes, and go.
When it comes to casual games, PopCap is king. Sure, others try, but nobody can catch the magic of a casual game as well as PopCap. And yes, they have a few misses, but those are rare.
So you can imagine my delight when I saw the box for Zuma's Revenge at my local Target.
Ah, Zuma. The original was so deceptively simple. A frog shoots balls out of its mouth at a moving line of multicolored balls. One of those ubiquitous "match three" games. Pretty fun. So what could PopCap do to make it different?
Plenty.
I downloaded the demo via Steam and fired it up and my eyes nearly fried. Sweet graphics, much better than the original!
Okay, so that screen capture doesn't do it justice, but it was great.
The play has been upgraded as well. There are new "power balls" that allow you to shoot a triple-shot of stones, lasers, and so on. There are even boss fights apparently, a strange development to casual games but not one that's awful. They also have included a "Challenge Mode," which seems to consist of setting a score bar that you have to meet within a certain time. They also have added a "hero" mode, something I can only try out if I beat the adventure mode. Somehow I doubt I'll be able to do that before my hour trial is over.
So it seems pretty good, but that's based on only a half hour worth of play. I have to leave the rest of the demo for my wife because she loves PopCap games too.
Not convinced? Just check out this trailer:
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