When a rain of meteors starts falling from the sky and it seems like the world is going to end, you’d probably think of environmental catastrophes or alien invasions of giant proportions. None of that here! In Meteos, planets are under attack by an evil planet named Meteo, the cause of the violent meteor showers. It’s up to you to save the world by playing a series of “match three” puzzles.
The gameplay is simple and very similar to Columns, except the pieces are single blocks. You are bombed by a series of falling blocks, which you have to arrange to form combinations of three of more of the same color. You can create vertical or horizontal combinations, but you can only move the blocks up and down. Creating color combos will ignite the meteos and launch them into space. While the large ignited stacks are being launched or falling back down, you can still move the colored pieces to make additional combos. The longer you manage to survive, the faster the blocks will fall. If the stacks reach the bottom of the screen, the game ends.
If you’re wondering what is so great about another “match three” puzzle, it’s the game mechanics. Meteos makes really great use of the stylus to slide the pieces on the touch screen (although you can make use of the D-pad, but it only slows you down). On the top screen, you get to see your score, the number of meteos launched and a couple of cute dancing aliens belonging to the planet you are saving.
There are at least 30 planets where you can play on, each with its own set of rules and blocks. For example, in a certain planet, only horizontal combos will launch the stacks while horizontal combos won’t help you clearing blocks. The different gravitational laws make stacks fall slowly or faster from planet to planet or they may let you launch single blocks up in the air or slide the to the top of a column with a quick movement. Basically, you have to adjust your style of play to each planet.
Each planet also has distinct background music and sound effects. You have everything from urban sounds (like a police radio) to birds chirping, plus a range of other musical scores such as oriental, medieval, techno, tribal and more. Music is a very important part of Meteos, since as you play, each combination you create makes a sound, adding to the background rhythm, turning into a more complex melody. When the blocks start really pouring, then the music stops making sense and becomes a cacophony of crazy sounds.
Not all of these planets will be available to play right away. Many of them are created through Fusion, which is where you get to use all those meteos you have launched. Combine certain types and quantities of meteos to obtain planets, items, music, sounds and rare metals (which are needed to create other planets as well).
Meteos offers a good variety of gameplay modes: Simple, Time War, Deluge and Star Trip.
Simple mode lets you play a single puzzle board with customized settings such as difficulty and planet, making it a good beginner’s tool. Time War has two rule sets, Time War and Meteo War, respectively get the highest score possible within the time limit, and how quickly you can launch the required amount of meteos. Deluge is basically a survival mode to see how long you last against faster and faster waves of falling meteos. Score is awarded according to the time you lasted and the number of meteos launched.
Star Trip is basically your story mode, where you set a course and battle planets until you reach the final challenger, Meteo itself. Aside from the four basic modes, there are also the added multiplayer and DS Download Play options.
So yes, you can bet Meteos has a lot of options to keep you busy and extremely entertained for either long periods of time or a quick match wherever you are.
A good and addictive puzzle game will always make my delights, and Meteos is no exception. At only $18, it was one of the best video game purchases I’ve ever made.