Gel spread it around

» Feature

By Bladeex1 - June 11, 2009 - 01:08 UTC - 1 Comment

Oh it’s not that kind of Gel silly and shame on you. Gel is a new Xbox Live game from the guys over at Gastronaut Studios. So check out this review.

I like Aardvarks. They are interesting looking in nature and always were a good departure when watching Wild Kingdom in my youth. Anyhow in the Xbox Live title Gel: Set & Match you play as an aardvark-like creature. Your job is to move colored Jell-O like blocks around a board. Lining up four or more of the same color together where at least one side of each block is touching another they start to wiggle, shimmer and dissolve away. Once the wiggling begins, you can pick up a shimmering block and toss it or slide it past another block of the same color before it dissolves away.

This causes a chain reaction causing the subsequent contacted blocks to wiggle and shimmer as well rinse and repeat. The more blocks you match the more you increase your points for building up multiple chains, but also it clears more and more blocks from the board. As you progress you’ll get access to rainbow colored wild card blocks that can match in any like-colored group.

The gameplay in Gel is interesting to say the least. I thought ok Yawn another puzzle game that I’m sureI won’t get through and I don’t want to write about. Well to my pleasant surprise the Gel has very non-traditional gameplay mechanic. It takes a bit to get use to how the little aardvarkian guy moves around and how the blocks respond to his movement. Once you master building upon you chains something goes “Bing” (not to be confused with the search engine) and you start to get this game. Now you’re kicking block butt and it’s time to hit the different modes of play. Oh you skipped the tutorial? Big mistake! Go back and play it as it’s more than worth your time.

Puzzle Mode- You clear blocks from the boards that have a pre-determined layout. You can complete the puzzle by clearing all of the blocks from the board, no matter how many moves it takes. The challenge is you can only be considered a “Master” is you clear the puzzle in the number of moves they determine is a master level. The more moves you make the lower the level you get for your efforts. Speed is your friend as well so the faster you time the better your score. Each board replayable as many times as you want so, you have lots of reasons to try and better your time

In Gel completing puzzles on each “card” unlocks more cards. Getting all of the puzzles on a single card unlocks that card’s bonus puzzle. Clearing blocks earns “stars” which you collect to serve as cash in the games store. It’s time to play “Barbie Dress Up” The store lets you buy character modifications, like different outfits, hats and head shapes. There are some really good costumes’ so you can customize to your heart’s content. Puzzle Mode is playable solo or as a two-player co-op, either local or online over Xbox Live.

Battle Mode changes things into a competitive contest for up to four players on the same system or online. With Battle Mode you have three gameplay types you can choose from: Fever Points, where players are competing for who can rack up the most points before the time runs out. Emblem is has players try to match all of the blocks with their respective symbols. Rounding out with Volleybomb in which you try to unearth bombs that can be powered up to blast the other players similar to Bomberman.

Last but not least and the mode I enjoyed the most was Action Mode. In Action mode you try to clear blocks from the path of an oncoming truck. It sounds easy but every skill you have learned in the other modes come into play. It was this mode that made me think yep this game is worth $10 bucks. It’s addictive and you will play it for at least a couple of hours the first time out. Building chains and matching blocks quickly is the entire point of the mode and for me makes this game different enough to move it out of the “oh another puzzler”.

800 Microsoft Points (about $10) is a small price to pay for such a well balanced game. Gastronaut Studios has a hit on its hands if Gel takes off. Even though I have to admit the online following was a bit small so I had to wait a bit to get a match online. Hopefully in the near future there will be some additional board or even some different modes to mix things up a bit.

Here’s some more screens and some of the Character Art from the game.