By John Walker on December 10th, 2010.
I would like to see the genre renamed please. “Match-3-or-more”. Matching just 3 is for loser wimps. I’m all about matching 5. The great-granddaddy of this ill-named puzzle favourite is Bejeweled, and PopCap have just released its third (well, nine hundred and seventeenth) incarnation, simply called Bejeweled 3. So has dragging gems into same-coloured lines changed dramatically enough to warrant yet another game? Here’s Wot I Think.
By Quintin Smith on December 8th, 2010.
Bejeweled 3 is out, and if you like putting gems in a line then you can play it on your computer. It’s quite good! Look, here Bejeweled 3 is on Steam, here it is on Direct2Drive, and if you head down to the official PopCap page then you can get yourself a free 60 minute trial. If you missed John’s rundown of the new features, that’s worth a look too. He is acerbic yet uplifting, like an Alka-Seltzer.
A video of Bejeweled 3′s new Zen mode follows, with its customisable mantras, ambient sounds, breath modulation and binaural beats. I am not joking. Take a look at this.
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By John Walker on November 1st, 2010.
I’ve just done some made up maths, and by my calculations every single human being on Earth has bought Bejeweled at least twice, even though Zoo Keeper is way better. It’s by far the most widely known match-3 game, and has made PopCap richer than God. Then came the rather improved Bejeweled 2. And next the wildly missing the point Bejewled Twist. Today they’ve announced Bejeweled 3, which they describe as “the first true sequel to [the] beloved flagship franchise in more than six years.” But what are those three matching gems up to now? And might they have made the improvement that could make me take it more seriously?
