Pieces

"No longer will you finish a 24 piece puzzle in 30 seconds."

Jigsaw puzzles. It’s not like their expensive. The real thing has to be better, right? They are better. The difference is that if you spill water on your cart of Pieces, it may not be garbage. That on its own is reason enough to buy this game. I bet you want a better reason though. Alright, I guess I’ll give you one.

The focus of a puzzle is to put the pieces together, and when you finish, you’re treated to a picture. The graphics aren’t going to stun you. That’s not to say that they’re bad. Most of the pictures are pleasing to the eyes, and a few of them are simply amazing, but the few that are bad, are really bad. The stage Eyes comes to mind. It a blur of oranges and pinks, and the first few tries, you’ll fail just because you won’t be able to tell what is what. There are stages, like the bouquet of roses, that are well drawn, and are still hard to play.

The music is something you would expect to hear but not notice it until it’s over. The music and sounds fit the game well, so well in fact, that you will hardly notice them. The music will never get stuck in your head, making you hum it elsewhere, but it doesn’t bother you enough that you would have to mute the television.

I’m sure you know how the game is basically played. You choose pieces, and place them in a puzzle. When you finish the puzzle you win. Boring. Thankfully, Pieces adds a few new elements to the standard jigsaw. First off is a circular bar at the bottom of the screen. From the time you pick up a piece, it will time you. The quicker you correctly place the piece, the more the bar fills up. Every time it fills up, it pushes your power meter up a level.

This is where the game gets fun. Items. You have a total of six levels of power. The first few levels give you items that will correctly show you where the current three pieces go, or put the picture image behind the puzzle, so you know where to place things. Those are baby items. The higher levels give you Auto, Help, and Brush. Auto will cause any piece you click to correctly place itself on the puzzle. Help will create another AI player to help you place pieces. Brush, my favorite, will start knocking your opponent’s pieces off the puzzle. Another useful item is the Syringe, which will empty your opponent’s item pool.

There are three modes of play. Normal, Two-play, and a Free-play mode. Normal will pit you up against zany AI players, ranging from a crab and a boar, to a ghost and a mermaid. You will try to use your speed to finish three puzzles before they do. When you do, you move on to the next opponent. This goes until you meet the final boss, who I will just describe as the jigsaw god.

Two-Play mode is pretty much the same thing as normal play, except the computer gets the bump for another person to play. Same rules apply, but try not to Brush them too much.

Free-play will probably last you the longest. You play against a timer to finish a single puzzle, and the whole item concept is out the window. Just good old puzzles. When you click Free-play, it will bring up four choices. The top two are eight and five minute puzzles. This will give you the said time to complete each puzzle. The bottom left is three minute puzzle with a few fake pieces, and the bottom right is no time puzzle with fake pieces. Fake pieces are ones that will be put into your puzzle pool, but don’t actually fit anywhere.

The puzzles are 6x4 in normal and two-play, but are 6x6 in free-play. They get to 6x8 later on. After every three puzzles in free-play, you are treated to something different. One of those, “What’s wrong in the second picture” puzzles, where you have to mark all the pieces that are different on the right picture.

Last, when you play free-play, before you start you choose a theme. This theme will decide what pictures you get. There is animals, airplanes, ????, and other.

This game will last you for a good while, and even longer if you can find someone confident enough to play a jigsaw puzzle game with you. Normal mode isn’t as fun after you beat it, but free-play more than makes up for it.

If you want a fun puzzle game to keep you entertained, or even a game to keep a few gamers playing together, this would be a nice choice. If you think that jigsaw puzzles are too childish for you, then stay away. I would personally recommend this to anyone who enjoys having a fun game to play, no matter if you are too mature or not.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/03, Updated 12/28/03