Bejeweled 3 Review, Continued.

Whew. What a busy time. Christmas, New Years, the beginning of a new school semester. I finally have a second to sit down and finish up my review of Bejeweled. So if you read my last review, I’d played all the different versions of the game, except Quest.

To continue where I left off with my last review, I started with Zen mode. I tried out the audio-visual effects. There are 4 different ways you can modify these:

• Breath Modulation – When this is turned on, it plays a breathing track. The aim is to have you breath in time with the sound, to relax and control your breathing. You can do just audio, or it has a neat visual representation of the in and out breath. You can also modify the volume and speed that this effect runs at. It works really well, which was surprising. When I had this turned on, I automatically tried to match my breathing with the sound playing, and it was really calming.
• Ambient Sounds – With sounds like rain leaves, ocean surf, and forest, it’s hard not to get relaxed when this effect is enabled. My favorite was rain leaves. Again, you can modify the volume of this, choosing to make it front and center or a background noise.
• Mantras – While this effect is enabled, it will play little inspirational messages on screen while you play. You can choose between options such as positive thinking, prosperity, and my personal favorite, weight loss. I didn’t really notice the mantras during the game, I was too focused on breathing and listening to the awesome background sounds I had turned on. Plus it took a little while for me to figure out where the messages show up on screen (on the little blue meter down at the bottom of the screen).
• Bianural Beats – I had no clue what this was when I first saw it, so I clicked enable and the first thing that happened is a little warning pops up saying that some people experience mood changes, dizziness, muscle twitches, etc. while using this mode, and if I experience any of these, contact a doctor immediately. I was intrigued. I went ahead and clicked okay. One thing to keep in mind with this, is you have to use headphones to enable it. What this effect does is plays different frequencies in each of your ears, to help your brain into different states. Hmm… sounds interesting. There are a bunch of these: sleepy time, chill cycle, euphoria, and more. I tried to use these, but unfortunately they  just gave me a headache. I’m not saying they’ll do that for everyone (I’m ultra sensitive to headaches) but I couldn’t really use it long enough to figure out if they really worked as advertised.

Ultimately, the Zen modes special effects really did help make it a more relaxing game and I enjoyed tailoring the effects to match my mood.

Onto the Quest! On Quest mode you play four different (new) Bejeweled minigames to uncover a hidden relic. There are 40 different minigames in all that you can play. Each time you beat a new minigame, you win a little gem and it gets you closer to uncovering the relic for that level. They are fun little minigames, such as Scratamax where you have to match 120 or more gems in 20 moves or less. It seemed impossible at first, but remembering that there are bomb gems that can help you accomplish this goal helps. Many of them are timed, which adds to the rush of playing them.

Overall, Bejeweled 3 was exactly what I expected of it. I really enjoyed playing the new modes and minigames that came with it, and that’s its biggest draw. The one complaint I had was I didn’t like the music, or the creepy voice that kept telling me when I got a match. Both were easily remedied by turning them off. Other than that, I’d say it’s worth the $20 purchase. Which you can find at your retail store, or can purchase online through Popcap Games, website.

by cassidymae

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