Reviewed: April 7, 2007
Reviewed by: Jason Porter
Publisher
Got Game Entertainment
Developer
Terminal Studio
Released: February 5, 2007
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
7
6
6
7
6.7
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Brickshooter Egypt is the latest puzzle game offering from Terminal Studio and Got Game Entertainment. It's an Egyptian-themed block moving game with its own twist, a game that requires strategic forethought and patience. There seems to be a whole sub-industry of this sort of cheaply produced, general-audience PC game, a sub-industry overloaded with titles. But Brickshooter Egypt is more fun than might be expected for a game with such a generic pedigree.
Brickshooter Egypt features:
- 60 captivating levels of revolutionary new puzzle experience
- Truly original and captivating gameplay
- Stunning ancient Egypt-style graphics and soundtrack
- vRebuild 5 ancient pyramids and the mysterious Sphinx
- Difficulty increases with 2nd and 3rd replay creating a total of 180 brain-teasing levels
Brickshooter Egypt is almost exactly what it sounds like, except that it isn't a Breakout/Arkanoid clone (sorry, Arkanoid fans). There are bricks, and they do shoot around, but there's no actual shooting or destroying of the bricks themselves with any other object. It's not a paddleball game; it's a puzzle game. The basic layout goes like this: there's an open area in the middle of the screen that is populated with a handful of iconic blocks. At each of the four cardinal directions around this field are banks of similar blocks.
Clicking on one of the blocks ringing the open area will send it out to bump and latch on to one of the free floating blocks, presuming that it will hit such a block by moving in a straight line. If there's no block there to catch it, it cannot be moved. Matching up three or more of the same type of block clears them all from the board, and extra blocks left over continue moving in the direction which they were originally shot in until they hit another block, or rejoin to the opposite bank from where they began.
It's hardly a new type of puzzle game, but it's a fun enough twist to be fairly entertaining over short periods of time. It helps that there is no time limit, though you can get extra points for finishing quickly. The basic strategy is simple enough--build a shelf of unrelated blocks to catch blocks of the color you need and line them up so that they form a set of three or four with the base glyph, clearing it.
By the middle of the game, though, the number of base blocks that need to be cleared gets fairly high, and there are a wide variety of different glyphs, making the process of getting three of the type you want in the same place a sometimes difficult one. Brickshooter Egypt has a good learning curve for a general audience in this regard. However, sometimes it almost felt too sedate for me at the beginning. A faster ramp-up would have been nice.
There are over sixty levels in Brickshooter Egpyt, but once you get the hang of the puzzles they all go by fairly quickly. Sure, they get more complicated closer to the end, but you won't really be surprised by anything after the first twenty or so levels have passed. The game is easygoing enough that it's well-suited to absent-minded after work or coffee break-type play, and it doesn't ever really get boring, but if you sit down with it expecting to be able to go tête-à-tête a la Tetris in an all-out puzzle gaming session, you'll be disappointed. This makes the game's replay feature (up to two more times through after the first, with increasing difficulty) seem rather unnecessary.
Brickshooter Egypt's two-dimensional hieroglyph-inspired graphics look nice, though they look nice in a cheap way, to the trained eye. There isn't a lot in terms of special effects like transparencies or sparkles, or any of the several such effects that many of the higher quality PC puzzle games (like the charming Glow Worm) include. There are some simple glow effects, but nothing else really. Personally I don't place a whole lot of weight on graphics in a game like this, so I can't really find anything to complain about. Just don't expect any sort of showcase of what your PC can do graphically.
Brickshooter Egypt has a nice song to play it to, but as far as I can tell it only has one. Take that as you will, but I doubt it would have hurt to have, say, three or four songs, at least. Sound effects are minimal but have a nice mystical overtone to them. Really there isn't a lot to say about Brickshooter Egypt from a sonic perspective.
Although Brickshooter Egypt's main puzzle sequence is very long, it is far from endless. The fact that the puzzles generally don't take too much tinkering to solve makes it an eminently playable game, but also one that may be over too fast for some people. At $9.99, this game would still be a great deal, but at the current asking price of $19.99 it isn't quite as much of a value as it might be. Twenty bucks can get you some great older games instead. Although Brickshooter Egypt is a fair deal, it isn't an outstanding one.
Fun and mildly addictive gameplay are combined with fanciful Egypt-inspired graphics and sound in Brickshooter Egypt, and the result is a fun game that feels fresh at least for a while, and is simple to learn while taking patience to master. However, games of this sort are still a dime a dozen, and although Brickshooter Egypt is packaged nicely enough, it fails to clear the hurdle of uniqueness enough to justify a purchase for serious gamer. On the other hand it is a good family purchase, although once again, it's not the best such title available, either.