I’m such a sheep it’s not even funny. For what seemed like weeks I’d been hearing about this game on the Nintendo DS called Puzzle Quest. It had been covered extensively on Penny Arcade and the Totally Rad Show. On the surface, it seems kinda lame: a cross between Bejewelled and an RPG. It seemed to be two things least likely to make a good game.

But finally I caved and bought it with my birthday money, and holy frickin’ crap, this game is so addictive. Even when I bought it, I was still skeptical. But my first sitting was 2-3 hours. It sucks you in.

The general gist is that you go from quest to quest and fight different warriors and creatures as you “level up” and gain weapons, skills, etc. But each “battle” is essentially a game of Bejewelled, whee you have to match three or more like-colored gems in order to gain mana. Now normally, I avoid any game with ‘mana’ like the plague, but this one is different. Getting more of it gives you access to new spells that have different effects on the board. And the further you get, you won’t be able to beat opponents without using spells liberally.

It’s available now for DS and PSP and is supposed to be coming out for Xbox Live Arcade, although I’ve yet to see a date for it. If you consider yourself a casual gamer, and have any of these systems, I highly recommend picking this up.

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