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Why Robin Makes Batman Better Galactrix, Puzzle Quest’s sci-fi spin-off, looks to be a pretty impressive step-up from the original Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlods that took everyone, including the developers, by surprise.
This time around the puzzle game will have a full storyline penned by a professional writer, rather than something dreamed up by the development staff. The game opens after a scientific accident provokes an alien race to try and exterminate humanity. As with Challenge of the Warlords, players create a character who gains skills, craft items, and in this case, upgrades their space fleet and deals with political factions.
The new hexagonal puzzle board now drops uses gravity, based on a player’s location in the universe, to determine how to drop pieces as others are cleared. The game will also include a set of new mini-games that has you hacking jumpgates, negotiating with other factions, trading commodities and collection blueprints.
My very short time with the game gave me a glimpse of the new game board and, as with Trism, the new gravity-specific gameplay adds a whole other level of complexity to the game. I’m sure I’ll end up being just as addicted to Galactrix as I was to Warlords when it finally hits.
After announcing that they’re bringing the bikini-clad, cowboy hat-wearing, zombie shooting Onechanbara to North America yesterday, does D3 Publisher have any other games featured at E3 that really matter? I suppose it depends on who you ask. Me? I’m excited about Puzzle Quest: Galactrix for Live Arcade, DS, and PC, but I am the puzzly sort. Anime fans might enjoy Naruto: Clash of the Ninja Revolution 2 for the Wii, though I’d say we’re all wishing they’d just advance the storyline already and give us some new characters in the states. Same with Path of the Ninja 2 for the DS. Dreamcast to DS port Bangai-O Spirits certainly isn’t anything to sneeze at. Ben 10: Alien Force? Shaun the Sheep?
I suppose once you announce a game where a scantily clad woman gets splattered with zombie blood the rest of your line up looks a bit pale by comparison.
Over GDC I dropped in to see what was up with D3 Publishers of America and was greeted with a great surprise. They have officially announced the impending arrival of the next game in the Puzzle Quest family titled Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. This Puzzle Quest has left the realm of fantasy and entered the vastness of outer space.
I wondered how they would change the jewel matching style gameplay to make this game different from its predecessor and they certainly didn’t disappoint. Besides the obvious visual differences in the interface, the style of puzzling has changed as well. The round pieces have changed to hexagonal ones and extra challenge has been added by the movement of the hexagons once you have matched up your three or more. Instead of dropping straight down, your columns slide diagonally, and depending on which piece you move, the columns will fill in either from the left or the right. Gravity will have a bearing on the various movements of the pieces as well making you have to think in several directions at once.
