Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords: Revenge of the Plague Lord

Rating Everyone 10+ Genre fantasy Publisher D3 Publisher External Links Official Puzzle Quest Website

So what do you get when you mix up one of the most addictive puzzle games ever created, a classic fantasy license, a sprinkling of RPG elements and a dash of collectability? Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords: Revenge of the Plague Lord (also known in development as Warlords: Revenge of the Subtitle, apparently). Last year, Puzzle Quest surprised the market by providing us with "Bejeweled With a Point." It debuted to great reviews, and its XBox port was declared 'Best Live Arcade Game of 2007' by more than one outlet. Now it's back for a second round with a downloadable expansion pack.

Way back in 1989, Steve Fawkner introduced us to the world of Etheria in Warlords, a fantasy styled turn based strategy game that helped establish the turn-based strategy PC game market. The original game detailed the continent of Illuria and eight factions who were fighting for control of it. Up to eight players could take turns ruling as a leader of one of these factions setting production queues, forming alliances, exploring ruins, razing your the cities of your "friends," and so on, until one person had conquered (or burned) two thirds of the cities. This game spawned a line of successful sequels, eventually branching into the 'real-time strategy' genre and, in an unique and surprising move, a puzzle game.

Fans of the Warlords series will see a lot of familiar faces in Puzzle Quest, with the Sirrian Knights playing the part of initial protagonists and big bad Lord Bane. the Horseman of Death, looming in the background as the eventual villain. The game primarily consists of traveling the world map to locate quests and performing whatever actions the quests require. This invariably involves combat, which is represented by a modified game of Bejeweled. In addition to the normal color-matching of archetype, Puzzle Quest adds special effects to the gems on the field. The normal colored gems provide mana (Red/Fire, Yellow/Air, Blue/Water, Green/Earth) with which to power your spells, purple gems that provide bonus experience, gold stacks that provide money, and skulls which cause direct damage to your opponent. You and your opponent take turns moving pieces on the game board and/or casting spells. Whoever runs out of health points first loses.

Fans of Bejewelled are probably asking themselves right now: "Spells?" Yep, spells. This is where the RPG aspect comes in. When the game begins you pick a class and this class choice comes with a selection of spells that increases as you level up. They range from effects such as doing direct damage to your opponent, healing yourself, changing the colors of gems, or destroying gems on the field. Some of them take you turn, some of them allow you to continue your turn afterwards, and some of them take turns from your opponent. This provides an interesting bit of strategy. At times, it's better to use a spell and lose your turn in order to force your opponent to make a bad move. Further spells can be learned by capturing monsters if you've built a dungeon, or researched in the mage tower. In fact, most of the aspects of a fantasy RPG/Strategy game are here, leveling up, equipment and spell selection, party building, the works. Further variations on the main puzzle game provide mini-games representing item creation, spell research, mount training, castle sieging, etc. It's a very convenient way to make every aspect of your adventures in Etheria consistent and always entertaining.

Revenge of the Plague Lord does what an expansion pack should. For those of you with existing characters, you will find a new area to explore replete with new quests, items, and spells to be learned as well as a continuation of the original storyline as you deal with Lord Bane's brother. In addition to this, four new classes have been added: Bard, Rogue, Ranger, and Warlock. Each provides a very different approach to playing the game than the original four, for new players or those looking to play through it again. So if you're already a Puzzle Quest veteran, Revenge is a pretty good reason to dust off your armor and get back into the fight. For those of you just getting to the game, however, Revenge takes what was already a solid game and adds even more of what makes it good to the mix. And in this case, there's no such thing as too much of a good thing. Though one word of warning. If your significant other is a Bejeweled fanatic, like my wife, you might want to hide the controller from him or her, or you may never see your XBox again.