POSTED 13/4/11


CHIME SUPER DELUXE

Zoë Mode
PS3/PSN (also on Xbox 360/XBLA, PC)

What was that all about?!

As appropriate a first reaction as any to this initially mind-fuckletating musical puzzler that purloins hunks of Tetris, Lumines, Rampart and Qix, bangs them all together and spits them out as a trippy, chilled-out puzzler. On the surface at least, for delve deeper and to fulfil the aim of the game then chilled isn’t exactly the state you’ll find yourself in.

To the accompaniment of 10 tracks from musical luminaries such as Moby, Paul Orbital, Fred Lemon Jelly and even Philip Glass (although sadly it isn’t the South Park-featured ‘Happy’ song), you plop down Tetris-esque pieces in various griddy things. Rather than being comprised of four blocks as per Alexey Pajitnov’s bundle of blocky joy, here you’re dealing with five square thingies. Pressure!

The idea is to lay these pieces down to form ‘quads’ – congregations of three-by-three squares or more - which count towards your coverage of the grid. Form the minimum requirement and the creation starts filling in. Add more quadlaciousness before the timer says ‘BZZT!’ (figuratively) and you’ll score more.

Coverage is that aforementioned aim of the game. You’ll aspire to 100 percent, but you’ll be bloody lucky to achieve it.

Harking back to musicality, placement of quads and size seems to have an effect on the music you hear, as a ‘beatline’ triggers stuff as it passes. Kinda like a LEGO Duplo sequencer.

Two can coexist on one grid, being all nice and co-operative, or up to four can thieve the toil of others and really give karma the middle digit. If the pressure gets too pressurey you can always opt for the ‘free mode’, where you can just faff with shapes without all that fascist completionistic drama.

Sure, it’s hippy and trippy, but this time the smelly buggers did good.

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