Developer: Big Fish Games
Steam Release: March 2009
Hours Played: 30.1
Similar To: 5 Star Rio Resort / Mystika 3 / Spooky Bonus / Trick and Treats
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips
Match 3 games are a satisfyingly addictive waste of time and everywhere on the Steam store. The tempting icon calls us relentlessly and before you know it, we answer the call as stress-busting delight ensues. Gameplay here is of the classic variety where you slide a tile up, down, left or right to switch it with an adjoining one. Matching three or more in a line causes them to explode and disappear while the grid fills up with more tiles that cascade from above. Matching a set amount of bugs or removing "gunk" from underneath is the usual objective. Unwell Mel is one of the most satisfying and insanely addictive match 3 game of this kind. Finding three to match up is never too difficult and such match-ups are signaled by a highly satisfying explosion with that accompanying squelch, pop, or zap.
The game is fast, chunky, quick and slick and is great at pulling you in for that one last game. As you complete levels, you return to a calendar page with an indicator that moves along to the next date. Some of these dates mean you visit a shop where you can purchase a variety of power-ups that get charged as you play. These are varied and mostly very useful and enhance the gameplay greatly. You simply click on the one of your choice in the lower left corner and then onto the game area to activate it. The game also runs with a countdown timer on the right hand side and although the challenge can usually be done before time runs out, there are odd occasions when you just can't clear those last tiles in time and have to start the game again. Often, it's usually when your power-ups are not fully charged.
With few tweaks available through the Options screen, Unwell Mel has a level-select screen showing our disease-ridden hero looking not unlike the character from the game of Operation where you take undesirable objects out of a body with tweezers. When you end a new level (of 2-4 games) you are taken to a calendar that moves an indicator forward and serves the purpose of showing how much of the game has been completed. Clicking anywhere on the calendar screen takes you to the level-select screen. Music in the background, as you play, has a slapstick quality with a melodic happy bounce giving off positive energy. Couple these Carry-On type chirpy rhythms with the absorbing pops and squelches and you have fine ingredients that make a light-hearted and enjoyable game.
The progress system takes a bit of getting used to at first but there are generally 8 levels to do in each month on the calendar and each one is the name of a disease. When you click on it, from the level-selection page, 2-4 squares are super-imposed on Mel's body. Each represents a game which you can then redo if you wish. So... 8 levels x 12 months = 96 levels. 96 levels x ~3 games per level = roughly 300 levels altogether. When you finish each game there is a flourish and a jaunty jingle followed by the revealing of your statistics and scores at the end with the best times also being recorded for posterity! That's the good news. The bad news is that you have no idea beforehand what your previous scores are or what your best time is or anything like that - just a square to click on - so you don't really know what to aim for.
CONCLUSION
At the risk of losing credibility I'm still going to go right on ahead
and give this hypnotizing and addictive match 3 game gold star status. This is mainly down to its sheer smooth fluidity and the feel-good factor it brings to the player. Plus, with the cartoon-like illustrations of the food and bugs fitting in with the silly-factor that the developers went for and the whole game being like a manic fruit machine that brings a kind of Vegas pizzazz
to your room - the game really does grab you by the balls from game 1. Besides, with 30 hours of my life devoted to it, I can hardly give it
anything less.
No comments:
Post a Comment