My low overall rating is almost entirely due to playability factors, as the stability, graphics, and sound are excellent.

Being a veteran of the original Zuma Deluxe both on Mac and iPod, and having seen the extraordinarily vivid and impressive graphics in this, i figured i was in for a another Pop-Cap great.

Having played fairly extensively i'm not quite so enthused. Hitting fruit, making gap shots, getting power-ups, creating chain reactions, surpassing "Ace Times" and just making chains of eliminations all seem to be more difficult, which results in a feel that the luck to skill ratio is larger in this game, or else there's more that should be explained about the strategy. All those variations don't make the game all that interesting unless you actually get to use them.

The rise in difficulty as the game progresses doesn't seem to be all that smooth, so the policy of being set back to specific save points can cause frustration. You FINALLY surpass that particularly nasty level which took 30 tries, at last getting an oportunity to progress, then lose and get thrown back to play the same level another 30 times to get another attempt at the next. Heaven forbid you find the next level just as horrid to get past, because now you can count on playing both until you're sick to death of them.

I've played games where i haven't ever entirely finished and i'm willing to accept that perhaps i don't play enough, that i'm just not suited to that particular game, or i'm getting too near geezerhood for my reflexes to be equal to the game's requirements.

However, i was really quite skilled at Zuma, which wasn't so different so perhaps the "Revenge" part is serious. More importantly though, since surpassing the "Adventure" portion is required to "unlock" certain other parts of the game, one may NEVER get to play those other portions and to me that's bad game design.

Playing "Challenge" can offer a nice break when you get stuck on difficult "Adventure" levels, but sooner or later you're going to want to get past the Adventure to crack open those other parts of the game.


Luxor 3, a close relative of Zuma, doesn't have this same problem due to the fact that additional play results in the ability to upgrade power-ups, allowing a player to eventually advance despite perhaps not having twitchiness up to snuff, or the time to play endless hours on end.

(Plants vs Zombies, also by Pop Cap, has various means such as "Twiddydinkies" to help where progress becomes difficult, or to temporarily bypass difficult portions and come back to them later.)

why would any one with a degree in marketing name a software after a racist term for diarrhea?
did you just want to piss off latinos or do you keep a lot of beer in the office fridge? :0