Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

"Summoning the Fail Whale: A masterpiece gone wrong"

First off, I play the first Puzzle Quest and love it so much that I am STILL playing it... very addictive. Galactrix, while still terribly addictive is VERY ripe with bugs and technical problems that it is almost unplayable - which leads to disgusting amounts of frustration.

Pros:
- still uber addictive
- interesting idea with the space theme
- excellent story line idea
- dinosaur pirates, Big Bird's bad-ass uncle, and a fluffy cute little hamster with serious roid rage.

Cons:
- load time, load time, LOAD time, LOAD TIME
- unresponsive, in both the boards and the menus
- flat boring characters
- the story takes for ever to actually progress
- gate hacking is hell
- cut scenes are still pictures with too small to read thought bubbles
- did I mention load time?

Who ever made this game was really slacking off, it had everything it needed to be a complete MASTERPIECE: the premise was AWESOME - a psychic running through space chasing a creepy eerie clone creature. The characters while completely unoriginal and under developed, are neat and I look forward to seeing what creature lives in the next galaxy. The hex board adds a whole new level of fun and interest to the battles (once you figure out that the gems fall in the way you move the gems your matching). But somewhere along the line, someone fell off the wagon, and wrecked the game. Gate hacking is by far the thing you do most of in the game: and its completely random and frustrating. Adding insult to injury, you don't get to keep any experience points you match while endlessly retrying the same damn gate. Another big problem is that the timer keeps going while combos are forming, and this can take up well over half of your time. And finally if you need to match a red one and a blue one, and match them at the same time.... IT DOESN'T COUNT.

On to menu screens. First off, the type is so small it is almost illegible, secondly the screen is so unresponsive you have to poke the darn thing multiple times usually just to get into anything. And each time you miss-poke, your ship starts flying off into lala land and you have to circle the planet, select the planet, and try selecting again. If you let go a second to early when selecting the planet, your ship takes off randomly to the top left corner of the screen. I can not count the amount of time I have spent circling planets trying to select things.

And finally the freaking load times. Every time you do anything at all, you encounter about a 10 second plus load time/ auto save time. I am not to sure why this is, but it just doesn't make sense. I love auto saving, but does the game really have to auto save after every little teeny tiny thing you do?

All in all, the game had such potential, but really fell short due to the massive amount of bugs. Would I suggest playing the game? Probably, with a warning that it will try your patience to the end. It is a greatly addictive game, and thats the problem. I want to quit because of the bugs, but the addictive nature of the game keeps dragging me right back to it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/07/09

Game Release: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (US, 02/24/09)