Chime review

Now that is out the way, is it worth putting you money down for the game? Leaving charity aside, it is safe to say that at 400 Points it is an absolute bargain. They could have charged 800 Points and it would be worth it. Quite simply put, Chime is an outstanding game that just oozes quality throughout. The music is wonderful, the gameplay mechanics are spot on and it has that all important 'just one more go' factor. So what is Chime? At 1st glance it looks like a mix of Tetris, Lumines & Qix. To be honest, if you had to explain it in a sentence then you wouldn't be too far off with that description. The basic idea of Chime is to use shapes to create a minimum 3x3 area to create coverage on a board before the time runs out. The shapes are various pentominoes, these vary from level to level. By interlocking these shapes you create areas known as Quads, each quad created earns you a score. Bigger Quads equal bigger scores. Multiple quads on the screen earn multipliers. You have a small time frame to add to each quad before it is rendered complete. Coverage is earned by placing a new quad on a fresh area of the grid. Reach 100% coverage and earn a bonus score. Earning coverage will also earn you a time bonus. Simple right? Well not quite, there is a tune bar that travels across the screen from left to right. This bar interacts with everything on the screen to create music, however more on this later. As the bar travels across the screen it wipes out finished quads leaving any remaining blocks that were attached to the quad to start fading away. Once these blocks start flashing you will want to get them part of another quad as quickly as possible. If the bar passes over a flashing block then the multiplier is lost and you have to build it up again. This whole mechanic helps create a balancing act so delicate that it is very difficult to find a single way to play. Concentrate on multipliers and you may well run out of time quicker as you find yourself in a single area of the grid for the most part. However try for coverage and you risk leaving stranded pieces to lose your multiplier. More time, but lower scores. It really is a challenge to get the right balance on each play through. It is a game that should frustrate and annoy you, however the developers have done really well to keep you hooked time and time again. This is partly thanks to the music in the game. One Big Game had a task on their hands, they had to get artists to provide music that not only kept costs down, but would also allow them to rip it apart to allow it to be manipulated by the user based on how they lay down shapes on the grid. Because of this they only have 5 tracks in the game, but they really do add to the experience. The music is perfect for the manipulation, to the point where you don't actually realise you are manipulating the tracks, everything sounds perfectly seamless. There are three very minor gripes with the game. The 1st being that on occasions the visual effects can cause you to become way too distracted from the task in hand. This may be a design choice, however it feels like it could have been toned down just a little. Especially when the game requires you to be rather precise with movements. This leads onto the second gripe. The precision needed in the game doesn't seem to agree with the 360 controller, all to often it can be easy to hit the stick a bit to hard and miss where you want to place a shape. It can frustrate when you are about to build up a 32x multiplier for big scores only to misplace a block and ruin your chances. The final gripe isn't actually the fault of the developers, however take it as a bit of friendly advice. Turn off notifications when playing this game. They tend to pop up at exactly the wrong moment. Usually right where you want to drop a shape. It can ruin your game if the timing is particularly bad.Longevity in the game is guaranteed too, each of the 5 levels has three time limits attached to it. 3 minutes, 6 minutes and 9 minutes. It is the 3 minute game that will take up most of your gameplay time with it being a fast paced race to a high score. However the 6 and 9 minute games off a nice change of pace and strategy. There is also a Free Mode with no score or no time limit. Simply go on and make beautiful music. So there we have it. Chime is a charity game, but far from a charity case. At 400 points you would be forgiven for buying it as your good deed for the year, but what you will actually get it one of the best and most well balanced puzzle games in years. Wonderful visual style, amazing sounds and as said previously that 'One More Go' factor. Get Chime now.