view large front
Bejeweled Twist
$9.99PC
This title is available for purchase in United States, Canada, Mexico, American Samoa, Antigua and B...More
Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Bejeweled Twist
Bejeweled Twist is not lightning in a bottle. It does not reinvent the match-three formula. It's just a good casual game that unfortunately breaks a fundamental rule of the genre -- it does not hook you within three minutes, like PopCap's blockbuster Peggle and, well, the previous two editions of Bejeweled. Once you do "click" with the game, though, there is a stunning amount of gameplay and polish. But you can walk away from it without a second thought, and that's very disappointing.
The twist alluded to in the title is the biggest change to the Bejeweled mechanic. Instead of flipping two gems to match three colors, you rotate a quartet. Each click of the mouse rotates the four games clockwise. When you make a match, the like-colored gems vanish and more cascade into the screen. But unlike the previous games, you can make a move without making a match. Previously, if you flipped two gems and did not complete a match, the gems flipped back to their original positions.
This completely alters the entire pacing of the game. It slows it down. It makes it more strategic once you get the hang of it, but at first, it feels frustrating pokey. You can make three or four moves without anything happening. Half the fun of Bejeweled was making a match and then seeing the screen explode in color as your speakers blare the "clink-clink-clink" of all the resulting matches. I'm not suggesting that all casual games need to light up like a Vegas jackpot every four seconds (although, that is so integral to Peggle's success), but there are too many quiet stretches during your introductory period with Bejeweled Twist.
Bejeweled Twist also lacks a sense of progression. When you fail in the game, you must start over from the very beginning. That's great for an arcade game, but Twist really needs a quest mode like Jewel Quest or Peggle. You deserve to jump back into the challenge right away -- not be sent back to the minors and work your way through stages that are now below your skill level.
After a few levels of play, Bejeweled Twist introduces special gems that affect your strategies. Bomb gems feature a countdown timer. Each move nudges the timer closer to zero. If you fail to match the bomb gem, the screen zooms into a "disarm spinner." Here, you must play a slot machine like minigame to survive. If you match skulls on the slots, the game ends. As you miss more and more bombs, the spinner gets harder to survive. Other special jewels include flame and lightning gems, unlocked by matching four or five gems in a single move. These blast entire rows and columns of gems when matched. Doom gems cannot be matched like bomb gems and take up space in the field. Fruit gems are like wildcards that remove all like-colored jewels from the play field and increase the time on any on-screen bomb gems.
Most of these special gems do not appear in Bejeweled Twist's zen mode, a variation of the game without any timers, explosions, or stress-inducers. This is not necessarily a good practice mode since the bomb gems figure so heavily into the main game, but it is nice way to adjust to the rotation mechanic. The polar opposite of zen mode is blitz, which puts five minutes on the clock and tasks you with making as many matches as possible.
The best variation of the entire game is challenge mode, which presents you with a series of puzzles and goals. In the Preserver challenges, you may be asked to keep at least 30 yellow gems in the field while making your matches. If you dip below 30, you fail out. Spectrum challenge dare you to match only specific colors in succession. The more of these individual challenges you play, the more you unlock. There are a remarkable number of individual challenges giving you plenty to do should you stick with Bejeweled Twist.
Each successive PopCap game manages to look better than the last. Bejeweled Twist is by far one of the most impressive, polished casual games on the market. The between-stage animations send you flying across the cosmos. The front-end is sharp. The music is exceptionally well done and the effects sound great. Casual games aren't necessarily meant to be played loud, but Bejeweled Twist is an exception. Try bumping this one when nobody's around.
©2008-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The twist alluded to in the title is the biggest change to the Bejeweled mechanic. Instead of flipping two gems to match three colors, you rotate a quartet. Each click of the mouse rotates the four games clockwise. When you make a match, the like-colored gems vanish and more cascade into the screen. But unlike the previous games, you can make a move without making a match. Previously, if you flipped two gems and did not complete a match, the gems flipped back to their original positions.
This completely alters the entire pacing of the game. It slows it down. It makes it more strategic once you get the hang of it, but at first, it feels frustrating pokey. You can make three or four moves without anything happening. Half the fun of Bejeweled was making a match and then seeing the screen explode in color as your speakers blare the "clink-clink-clink" of all the resulting matches. I'm not suggesting that all casual games need to light up like a Vegas jackpot every four seconds (although, that is so integral to Peggle's success), but there are too many quiet stretches during your introductory period with Bejeweled Twist.
Bejeweled Twist also lacks a sense of progression. When you fail in the game, you must start over from the very beginning. That's great for an arcade game, but Twist really needs a quest mode like Jewel Quest or Peggle. You deserve to jump back into the challenge right away -- not be sent back to the minors and work your way through stages that are now below your skill level.
After a few levels of play, Bejeweled Twist introduces special gems that affect your strategies. Bomb gems feature a countdown timer. Each move nudges the timer closer to zero. If you fail to match the bomb gem, the screen zooms into a "disarm spinner." Here, you must play a slot machine like minigame to survive. If you match skulls on the slots, the game ends. As you miss more and more bombs, the spinner gets harder to survive. Other special jewels include flame and lightning gems, unlocked by matching four or five gems in a single move. These blast entire rows and columns of gems when matched. Doom gems cannot be matched like bomb gems and take up space in the field. Fruit gems are like wildcards that remove all like-colored jewels from the play field and increase the time on any on-screen bomb gems.
Most of these special gems do not appear in Bejeweled Twist's zen mode, a variation of the game without any timers, explosions, or stress-inducers. This is not necessarily a good practice mode since the bomb gems figure so heavily into the main game, but it is nice way to adjust to the rotation mechanic. The polar opposite of zen mode is blitz, which puts five minutes on the clock and tasks you with making as many matches as possible.
The best variation of the entire game is challenge mode, which presents you with a series of puzzles and goals. In the Preserver challenges, you may be asked to keep at least 30 yellow gems in the field while making your matches. If you dip below 30, you fail out. Spectrum challenge dare you to match only specific colors in succession. The more of these individual challenges you play, the more you unlock. There are a remarkable number of individual challenges giving you plenty to do should you stick with Bejeweled Twist.
Each successive PopCap game manages to look better than the last. Bejeweled Twist is by far one of the most impressive, polished casual games on the market. The between-stage animations send you flying across the cosmos. The front-end is sharp. The music is exceptionally well done and the effects sound great. Casual games aren't necessarily meant to be played loud, but Bejeweled Twist is an exception. Try bumping this one when nobody's around.
©2008-11-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved