Mr. Driller

"Utter gaming bliss"

Mr. Driller is a nice coffee-break puzzle game from Namco. It is available to nearly every platform (at least as far as GameFaqs game info is concerned) and is damn addictive.

Graphics: 5/10
The graphics won't stun you - except for their choice of colors. You mainly have large, colored blocks and a cute SD (stumpy head) character with helm and drill. But you don't need more. Although the resolution is quite low at 640*480 max, the picture is crisp and the framerate is steady. So no complaint, but no praise here either.

Sound: 8/10
Music: 5/10
It's not the quantity of noises, but the quality that makes this special. From the moment you fire up the game you're bombarded with quirky samples. The speech (what little there is) is in typical japano-english, and I can't help but grin broadly all the way. And as soon as you start playing, the fun goes on. When you drill blocks, it sounds like popping balloons, the hero rejoices everytime you pick a an air capsule, and even if you die you smile, because the sound of blocks squishing you to a pancake is simply hilarious. The Music is rather unobtrusive, but not annyoing either - a great improvement to, say, Tetris on the Gameboy (In my opinion the best puzzler so far).

Gameplay: 9/10
This is - as mentioned before - a puzzle game. Your goal is to drill as deep as possible into a giant stack of colored blocks. Point Mr. Driller with the cursor keys in the direction you want him to drill, hit D and he pops a block.

There are three major concepts that make this interesting:
1. You are on a tight time limit, represented by an Air-Meter. If your air runs out, you die. So you need to collect air capsules. A twist here is that usually these capsules are ''locked in'' by so-called X-Blocks, which take more than one ''drill'' to pop AND cost you big air.
2. The blocks behave a lot like the beans from Puyo Puyo or Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine. So if two blocks of the same color happen to touch, they meld into one. You can safely have three blocks joined, but 4+ blocks will disappear.
3. Gravity. So, if 4 Blocks pop and disappear, all the blocks above will fall down. Some will obviously stick to blocks of their own color, but it is much more likely that one will fall on your head squishing you.

So, you deeper you drill, the more frantic the game will become, always on the lookout for chain reactions that will pop X-Blocks to free Air Capsules or avoiding blocks from prior chain reactions.

The only downside with this game is the lack of modes. You have Arcade Mode (with either 2500 or 5000 feet to drill), Time Attack (complete certain stages within a TIGHT time limit) and survival (See how deep you can get with just one life). I wish it had multiplayer or a puzzle mode like ''clear the stage completely with two air capsules'' or some such, but anyway. It keeps me hooked for hours on end.

Before I got this game (I found it used at a flea market) I was playing Diablo II and Splinter Cell... both fantastic games in their own right, but momentarily not interesting... I just want to finish the damn 5000-ft-challenge :)

To buy or to rent:
I say: If you can get your hands on it and are a bit open minded about puzzle games, get it by all means. It's so good fun.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/24/03, Updated 05/24/03