Meteos Rockets into Top Contention in the Puzzler Catagory

Every handheld needs a memorable puzzler, and the DS is no exception. The question these days is: Which of many puzzlers is the king of them all? Most would agree that Q? Entertainment's 'Meteos' takes the prize. Not quite the Rave party of the PSP's Lumines, not as old school as Tetris DS, and not as cute as Pokemon: Trozie!, Meteos takes a bit of each of those and churns out something that's a breathe of fresh air in the stale puzzler genre.

In the game, Meteos (little elemental blocks) are raining down on all the planets of the galaxy, sent by the evil eye-entity, Meteo. It's your job to launch the Meteos back into space and save the planets from certain destruction. Okay, so it's not quite an epic, but what puzzle game's story is? Instead of focusing on the story too heavily, like in Pokemon Puzzle League (great game though), Meteos defines the 'pick-up-and-play' game. Any time, anywhere, Meteos is ready to be played for both short bursts or long missions.

The object of the game is to line up three of the same colored Meteos in a line, either horizontally or vertically, so that they turn into rocket boosters and push all the Meteos on top of them towards the top of the screen. You line them up by sliding them up and down their respective rows with a quick swish of the stylus. Simple right? Wrong. Once on the mid to higher difficulties, the Metoes from opposing planets really start to rain down, causing frantic scrambles to line up three or more of the same colored block to survive just a few more seconds. Using the stylus isn't mandatory, but is highly recommended. I think the option to use the D-pad and buttons to switch Meteos around is merely included to show how impossibly hard the game would be without the stylus. Control with the stylus isn't without its flaws though. A cheap method of clearing many Meteos in very short time can be done by just scribbling the stylus diagonally back and forth across the screen to line up blocks. It requires no skill and can really kill a multiplayer match. Fortunately, on the higher difficulties this devious tactic doesn't work. The blocks are coming down too fast and without the proper thought and planning, it'll be Game Over before you know it. I wouldn't call screen scribbling a game-breaker, but just a stupid move that real puzzlers will avoid.

The premise is, in essence, simplistic, but the developers added another level of complexity never seen in a puzzler before into Meteos: Scores of different enviorments to play in. Called 'Planets', these various playing fields aren't just different colors to mix things up, they all have different gravities (The higher the gravity, the faster the Meteos blocks fall toward the bottom of the screen after being launched, and the lower the gravity, the longer the blocks float when coming back down) and sizes. Some may have such low gravity that the launched Meteos would just blow off the screen immediately, where as another wouldn't even move when one row of Meteos would be lined up, requiring a combo to launch the stack anywhere. Each planet is unique and special: They have their own music, their own block types(an amazing variety at that), and their own feel all to themselves. Players will eventually find favorites to play on, but they'll find out that won'y really help them in the end...

Possibly the best part of the game is the Fusion system. Basically, every Meteo you ever launch off the screen during any and every game-type is converted into currency to be used to buy sounds clips, new planets to play as, Rare Metals (Used to make even more advanced Fusions), and items that will appear in the non-mission mode. In all honesty, you will probably never run out of things to unlock in this game; that's how many unlockables there are. Some of the sounds clips may seems a bit tacked on, but each and every new planet is worth fighting for. Kudos to the developers for including this great feature.

There are four main modes of play in Meteos. The first, Simple, is your standard single match puzzle experience. You pick your difficulty, from one to six stars, the number of computer opponents you'll be facing, up to three, and how good those computer planets will be, one to six stars again. The second mode, Deluge, is a play-til-you-lose mode. You choose your planet and away you go until the blocks reach the top of the screen for too long and you lose. The third mode is mission mode, in which you embark on a journey to numerous planets in quick succession until you meet and defeat the Evil Meteo. There are three different missions to take: The straight line path, the pyramid path (where you choose which line to take), and the scattered path (where you completely choose your way through a jumble of planets). The missions are a good way to stock up on the types of Meteos you're running low on and can't get in simple mode yet. Finally, there is multiplayer. Whether through Download Play or Wireless connectivity between to seperate game cartiges, the mayhem is fast and furious between to humans.

The game lets you choose your level of experience, so the learning curve isn't steep at all. My only complaint about it is sometimes, in the middle of a mission, there will be a sudden spike in difficultly to the point where there is no way I could win and I have to exit. Besides that, I can't find any fault in this near perfect puzzle game. The vivid colors it uses look great on the new DS Lite's brighter screen, and even though it's been out for over a year, now is as good of time as any to go purchase Meteos.

-Padgham