Reviewed on PlayStation Vita
→ February 4, 2014 Living in the era of the app store, tile-matching games are ten-a-penny, but the good ones still stand out.
Surge Deluxe is a revamped version of a PS Mobile game that came out a couple of years ago. It retains the same simple yet frantic gameplay of the original, but I found the tweaks made things that bit more hectic and enjoyable. Elsewhere, the inclusion of a Puzzle Mode is a welcomed addition, giving the experience that bit more depth and longevity.
Surge Deluxe is about colour-matching tiles. It has no aspirations to be anything else. You connect tiles pulsing with the same neon charge by dragging a finger across them. Of course, there are a couple of slight hitches: you can only connect tiles with exposed edges, and if you accidentally catch another tile while drawing a path, the circuit is broken. Early on, this poses little to no problem, but later, when things inevitably become more pressurised, it’s an important pitfall. And when you fail, it’s never down to the controls – the Vita’s screen is spacious and sensitive, and works well even when you’re navigating the smallest of gaps.
Speaking of pressure, the left- and right-hand sides are taken up by gauges, which – as you’ve probably guessed – start to fill as time passes. Building larger chains relieves the pressure faster; clearing tiles also reveals vents, allowing you to vent the pressure manually. Clear an entire row, and you’ll be able to connect the vents with a beam of energy to net a multiplier.
It might sound complex, but the tutorial does a great job of acquainting you with all the blinking elements constantly demanding your attention. While not the most original impetus, the venting mechanic does add a further element of strategy to the experience when you get close to clearing the board.
You have to pay close attention to Surge Deluxe, so it’s a missed opportunity that it’s wrapped up in a style that doesn’t feel very distinctive. Yes, it’s bright and bold – both necessary for the central mechanic of matching – but the aesthetic of sparking electricity and tiles that throb with charge is so generic it’s slightly off-putting. But thankfully, a lot of these things recede into the background when I was playing, such is the pull of the experience.
When unique tiles are thrown into the mix, the matching livens up. They function as power-ups, of a kind, but also an occasional hindrance. For example, some tiles cycle through certain colours, opening up potentially longer chains, but select them at the wrong moment and you’ll break the current chain you’re building. It’s purposefully maddening, especially when you’re up against the pressure limit. Other tiles, meanwhile, ease the pressure. The best – the aptly named Frenzy blocks – transform all remaining tiles a single colour, allowing you to go on a satisfying clearing rampage.
The specific tweaks made to the Deluxe edition serve to ratchet up the scores and make the experience a little more free-flowing. Multiplier tiles are no longer colour-coded, for instance, allowing for a bit more freedom and forgiveness when clearing a stage. While this definitely makes life easier in the earlier rounds, later on it’s a godsend. Yet I never felt like this simplified Surge, since there’s so much to contend with in later levels.
Actually, one of Surge’s weaknesses is judging when best to ramp up the difficulty. This misstep comes early on, with stages remaining too easy for a good 10 minutes. That’s fine when its easing you in, acquainting you with the rules. But when you’re ready to challenge for a high score, it’s annoying, not to mention a bit of a time sink, to wade through these facile levels time and again. The difficulty spike arrives slightly too late.
So much so that I wanted something else to do, instead of scaling the score attack yet again. Thankfully, the Deluxe version caters for this in the form a Puzzle Mode, and it’s one of the very best additions. You’re presented with stages, just like any other, but each one also comes with a theoretical high score that’s possible to achieve through maximising your chains and using special tiles with brain firmly in gear. This is definitely my favourite mode, and I spent more times trying to work out how these high scores were achieved than trying to set my own score. Sadly, there are only 15 stages – it really is a secondary mode – but it’s a great dojo not only to learn in but also be challenged by. These are skills that can even be taken back into the score attack.
Surge Deluxe also incentivises the score attack through the smart way it tackles competition. Online leaderboards aren’t used to spotlight the superhuman who is currently the best in the world, but rather to let you know who is directly ranked above you in the world. It makes things personal.
More...
→ February 4, 2014 Living in the era of the app store, tile-matching games are ten-a-penny, but the good ones still stand out.
Surge Deluxe is a revamped version of a PS Mobile game that came out a couple of years ago. It retains the same simple yet frantic gameplay of the original, but I found the tweaks made things that bit more hectic and enjoyable. Elsewhere, the inclusion of a Puzzle Mode is a welcomed addition, giving the experience that bit more depth and longevity.
Surge Deluxe is about colour-matching tiles. It has no aspirations to be anything else. You connect tiles pulsing with the same neon charge by dragging a finger across them. Of course, there are a couple of slight hitches: you can only connect tiles with exposed edges, and if you accidentally catch another tile while drawing a path, the circuit is broken. Early on, this poses little to no problem, but later, when things inevitably become more pressurised, it’s an important pitfall. And when you fail, it’s never down to the controls – the Vita’s screen is spacious and sensitive, and works well even when you’re navigating the smallest of gaps.
Speaking of pressure, the left- and right-hand sides are taken up by gauges, which – as you’ve probably guessed – start to fill as time passes. Building larger chains relieves the pressure faster; clearing tiles also reveals vents, allowing you to vent the pressure manually. Clear an entire row, and you’ll be able to connect the vents with a beam of energy to net a multiplier.
It might sound complex, but the tutorial does a great job of acquainting you with all the blinking elements constantly demanding your attention. While not the most original impetus, the venting mechanic does add a further element of strategy to the experience when you get close to clearing the board.
You have to pay close attention to Surge Deluxe, so it’s a missed opportunity that it’s wrapped up in a style that doesn’t feel very distinctive. Yes, it’s bright and bold – both necessary for the central mechanic of matching – but the aesthetic of sparking electricity and tiles that throb with charge is so generic it’s slightly off-putting. But thankfully, a lot of these things recede into the background when I was playing, such is the pull of the experience.
When unique tiles are thrown into the mix, the matching livens up. They function as power-ups, of a kind, but also an occasional hindrance. For example, some tiles cycle through certain colours, opening up potentially longer chains, but select them at the wrong moment and you’ll break the current chain you’re building. It’s purposefully maddening, especially when you’re up against the pressure limit. Other tiles, meanwhile, ease the pressure. The best – the aptly named Frenzy blocks – transform all remaining tiles a single colour, allowing you to go on a satisfying clearing rampage.
The specific tweaks made to the Deluxe edition serve to ratchet up the scores and make the experience a little more free-flowing. Multiplier tiles are no longer colour-coded, for instance, allowing for a bit more freedom and forgiveness when clearing a stage. While this definitely makes life easier in the earlier rounds, later on it’s a godsend. Yet I never felt like this simplified Surge, since there’s so much to contend with in later levels.
Actually, one of Surge’s weaknesses is judging when best to ramp up the difficulty. This misstep comes early on, with stages remaining too easy for a good 10 minutes. That’s fine when its easing you in, acquainting you with the rules. But when you’re ready to challenge for a high score, it’s annoying, not to mention a bit of a time sink, to wade through these facile levels time and again. The difficulty spike arrives slightly too late.
So much so that I wanted something else to do, instead of scaling the score attack yet again. Thankfully, the Deluxe version caters for this in the form a Puzzle Mode, and it’s one of the very best additions. You’re presented with stages, just like any other, but each one also comes with a theoretical high score that’s possible to achieve through maximising your chains and using special tiles with brain firmly in gear. This is definitely my favourite mode, and I spent more times trying to work out how these high scores were achieved than trying to set my own score. Sadly, there are only 15 stages – it really is a secondary mode – but it’s a great dojo not only to learn in but also be challenged by. These are skills that can even be taken back into the score attack.
Surge Deluxe also incentivises the score attack through the smart way it tackles competition. Online leaderboards aren’t used to spotlight the superhuman who is currently the best in the world, but rather to let you know who is directly ranked above you in the world. It makes things personal.
More...
