Meteos Wars - Review

Review by Robert Boyd



Meteos Wars is the latest puzzle game to be released on XBLA from Q? Entertainment - publisher of such gems as Lumines Live and Rez HD. As a big fan of Q? Entertainment's previous games, I went into Meteos Wars with high expectations.

In Meteos Wars, the player is tasked with the defense of a planet from the meteor-like meteos (meteor, meteos, get it?). In typical puzzle game fashion, this is accomplished by matching up colored blocks (the meteos) in lines. In not so typical fashion, matching up colors doesn't instantly remove those meteos from play, but instead creates rockets that launch your meteos up into the air. The bulk of the gameplay consists of trying to juggle stacks of meteos in the air, matching enough colors to keep them aloft, but not enough to leave the planet, allowing the stacks to get bigger and bigger from the falling meteos, before finally creating enough propulsion to launch the entire stack off the playing field for a ton of points (and a lot of extra meteos on your opponent's screen in multiplayer and versus modes).

I was a little worried that Meteos Wars wouldn't control well with a traditional controller (Meteos was originally a stylus-based DS game), but I'm pleased to report that the game works reasonably well with the 360 controller, using one analog stick to move the cursor and the other stick to move meteos up and down. Switching from one side of the screen to the other can be a little slow, but even this problem can be alleviated by adjusting the cursor speed in the option menu.

Meteos Wars contains a respectable amount of content for an 800 point puzzle game. There's a story mode where you fight against the computer across a number of different planets, finally fighting on planet Meteos itself. There's a vs. mode where you can play against another player or the computer in a single match. There's a Marathon mode where you don't have to worry about an opponent and you just try to get as many points as possible. Finally, there's are a few challenge modes available like trying to get as many points as possible in a minute. With multiple difficulty levels, unlockable planets (each with their own visual scheme & music), unlockable accessories for your alien avatars, achievements, and leaderboards, there are plenty of reasons to come back for one more game.

The game is not without its flaws. Online multiplayer is a joke with game-ruining lag being a frequent problem, assuming of course, that you can even find an opponent to play against in the game's barren online community. The color schemes for some of the planets can make it difficult to distinguish between colors which can be frustrating. Finally, if you have played a good deal of Meteos on the DS, you may find it difficult to adjust to the different controls.

Problems aside, I have enjoyed the time I've spent playing Meteos Wars and plan to spend much more time on it in the future. It looks and sounds great (the audio in particular seems to be much better than the DS game) and the game's frantic gameplay is a nice change of pace from the other puzzle games I tend to play. It's not the best puzzle experience I've had on XBox Live Arcade (that being Lumines Live with the Rockin' Holiday pack add-on), but it's still a lot of fun. I highly recommend it to fans of fast paced puzzle games, especially if you haven't already played the DS version.