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IGN Review of Gunpey DS
Puzzle games on the handheld. It's like butter for your bread. Cream for your coffee. Tobasco for your pizza. Tetris showed just how well the genre can compliment the hardware, and since then there have been dozens of different ways to offer a different flavor for the game/system pairing. When the Wonderswan launched in Japan, the company had an original puzzle game all ready to go for the masses to snag with a system purchase. That game was Gunpey, a tile-shifting design named after the Wonderswan's creator, coincidentally the same man responsible for giving life to Nintendo's Game Boy years before. Gunpey, and the Wonderswan as a whole, failed to find an audience, but Namco Bandai's not ready to give up on the design, as the company recruited the help of Meteos and Lumines studio Q Entertainment to revive the design for the current generation of handhelds. Unfortunately, no amount of gussying up can make the game as classic as other puzzle competitions on the handheld.
The original Gunpey concept puts players to the task of aligning lined tiles in five columns in such a way that the lines link across the playfield from left to right. As the link remains on the screen, players can continue a combo by sliding in additional tiles that will continue the line chain in different directions...or have it link back into itself with crossbars. Players can only maneuver tiles up and down in the same column, which limits the moves available, and if the continuously rising stack of tiles reaches the top of the bin it's game over. Simple.
Q Entertainment already hit a home run on the Nintendo DS with the clever touch-screen focused Meteos design, and it's clear that both the development influence and some of that engine is at work in Gunpey DS. The game can be played the traditional Wonderswan and PSP way of moving a cursor to swap two tiles position. It's slow and steady, but it worked for the original game. This, however, is the Nintendo DS, and it's made by the Meteos development studio. So, we now get the quicker "drag up and down" action instead. Much more rapid and intuitive, actually, but at the same time it gets a little confusing during a combo string since the dragging still swaps two tiles positions. In other words you might annoyingly break a really awesome combo simply due to the fact that it's impossible to move a tile up a column without shifting other tiles out of the way.
Gunpey is a somewhat fun puzzle game, but it'll never reach classic status because it's one of those games that relies too much on random placement of tiles. The big culprit is the fact that a link has to form across all five columns, and there will be many, many times when you're sitting there waiting for a tile to show up in a empty column. When this happens you're spending more time managing the rest of the stack so it doesn't scroll off the playing field, which many times will screw up any combo you've got all ready to go.
Namco Bandai worked the Gunpey design across both the current handhelds. On the PSP, you've got a clean and mature, simplistic interface and experience that's mellow and inviting. On the Nintendo DS, it's the extreme opposite: the game tries for an "extreme" presentation with wild characters of various sizes and species, from DJ bulldogs to cat cowgirls to giant penguins, each with a different visual and audio style. It's nice when developers add personality to puzzle games, but in the case of Gunpey it's a little too busy. It's a matter of personal preference, but in this case, it seems that the PSP version gets the more appropriate and universally accepted presentation.
Because of the Meteos influence, Gunpey DS has a lot of the same elements that made the 2005 puzzler pretty cool: single cartridge multiplayer, a downloadable demo for those without the game, and some unlockables as you complete certain tasks within the single player experience. The multiplayer option does add a lot of value to the puzzle game since the human element is far more unpredictable than the computer opponents you're always competing against in the solo outing. And it's great that only one copy's needed for the experience. Also embedded in the design is the ability to enhance the game's "Music" portion of the design where you can edit rhythms with unlocked samples and beats. This music portion might be branded prominently on the front of the box, but honestly, it's not all that big of a deal. It's a nice diversion, but it's certainly no selling point.
©2006-11-29, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The original Gunpey concept puts players to the task of aligning lined tiles in five columns in such a way that the lines link across the playfield from left to right. As the link remains on the screen, players can continue a combo by sliding in additional tiles that will continue the line chain in different directions...or have it link back into itself with crossbars. Players can only maneuver tiles up and down in the same column, which limits the moves available, and if the continuously rising stack of tiles reaches the top of the bin it's game over. Simple.
Q Entertainment already hit a home run on the Nintendo DS with the clever touch-screen focused Meteos design, and it's clear that both the development influence and some of that engine is at work in Gunpey DS. The game can be played the traditional Wonderswan and PSP way of moving a cursor to swap two tiles position. It's slow and steady, but it worked for the original game. This, however, is the Nintendo DS, and it's made by the Meteos development studio. So, we now get the quicker "drag up and down" action instead. Much more rapid and intuitive, actually, but at the same time it gets a little confusing during a combo string since the dragging still swaps two tiles positions. In other words you might annoyingly break a really awesome combo simply due to the fact that it's impossible to move a tile up a column without shifting other tiles out of the way.
Gunpey is a somewhat fun puzzle game, but it'll never reach classic status because it's one of those games that relies too much on random placement of tiles. The big culprit is the fact that a link has to form across all five columns, and there will be many, many times when you're sitting there waiting for a tile to show up in a empty column. When this happens you're spending more time managing the rest of the stack so it doesn't scroll off the playing field, which many times will screw up any combo you've got all ready to go.
Namco Bandai worked the Gunpey design across both the current handhelds. On the PSP, you've got a clean and mature, simplistic interface and experience that's mellow and inviting. On the Nintendo DS, it's the extreme opposite: the game tries for an "extreme" presentation with wild characters of various sizes and species, from DJ bulldogs to cat cowgirls to giant penguins, each with a different visual and audio style. It's nice when developers add personality to puzzle games, but in the case of Gunpey it's a little too busy. It's a matter of personal preference, but in this case, it seems that the PSP version gets the more appropriate and universally accepted presentation.
Because of the Meteos influence, Gunpey DS has a lot of the same elements that made the 2005 puzzler pretty cool: single cartridge multiplayer, a downloadable demo for those without the game, and some unlockables as you complete certain tasks within the single player experience. The multiplayer option does add a lot of value to the puzzle game since the human element is far more unpredictable than the computer opponents you're always competing against in the solo outing. And it's great that only one copy's needed for the experience. Also embedded in the design is the ability to enhance the game's "Music" portion of the design where you can edit rhythms with unlocked samples and beats. This music portion might be branded prominently on the front of the box, but honestly, it's not all that big of a deal. It's a nice diversion, but it's certainly no selling point.
©2006-11-29, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved