Bejeweled 2 Deluxe

"A nice, basic, relaxing game."

A simple game released on the Xbox 360's Live Arcade for a small price of 800 Microsoft points (which is around £6 GBP/$8 USD). It's a great game to relax to at night time just before you go to bed, but why not the 10/10 score?

Gameplay: 6/10

5 modes ready to play from the start (1 of which is hidden), 4 modes to unlock. Each of them are different in their own way. Some examples are Timed mode having to get the 'health bar' filled before it's depleted, Puzzle mode being the one where you have to solve 80 different puzzles, and Endless mode giving you the freedom to see how dedicated you are to the game, by not allowing the horror of 'No More Moves' to stop you from continuing. I wonder what the highest level really is, since I can't imagine the level counter going higher than 9999...

The problem is that the game gets very boring after a while, especially when you're just playing Endless mode to get the achievement. It's a nice game to relax to when you've just had a busy day at work though.

Graphics: 8/10

It's hard to go wrong with the graphics in a game like this. The jewels are rendered beautifully, especially in 720p, with nice in-game effects, and cool backgrounds. So why didn't it score a 10? Because they could of done so many more effects if they just made the jewels 3D rather than 2D sprites. Also there seems to a constant jump in the framerate. Perhaps it's an issue with the PAL version only, since when the 360 is set to 50hz, the issue is no longer present.

Music & Sound: 8/10

I like the music in this game, and the sound effects match the kind of game it is. But the announcer is very loud, and cannot be disabled at all. The explosion noises are also VERY lound and cannot be turned down, which can get annoying at times.

Control: 6/10

Really, I should be blaming this score on the 360's awful D-Pad rather than the game, as is the lack of mouse support. The game was designed for a mouse, and whilst the controls are fine in most of the game modes, playing Timed/Hyper mode can lead to frustrations, due to having to press the D-Pad repetitively fast. And because of how horrible the D-Pad is, it often leads to accidentally moving the curor off to a place other than the one desired.

Replay Value: 2/10

Since you will most likely be playing this for the achievements, getting to level 280 on Endless mode will take a good portion of your life away (the average time on the leaderboards seems to be around 6000 minutes). So once you get all the achievements in the game, you will most likely not want to play the game again...
I've given it a 2 since there are some people who will probably replay some of the modes to improve their high score etc.

Overall: 7/10

A good, solid game, with 4 modes to unlock, giving you 9 in total, but the game can get very boring and repetitive. The controls sound and graphic faults bring the score down slightly.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/06