Game Reviews

Babo Crash Deluxe

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Babo Crash Deluxe
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| Babo Crash Deluxe

When you’ve seen everything there is to see in a genre, one way forward is to take each element and turn it "up to 11," to quote Spinal Tap.

That’s the approach that Playbrains has taken with Babo Crash Deluxe.

It grabs the bloated, unadventurous match-three puzzler genre by the scruff of the neck and forces it to work hard for our affections. To produce more bangs for our bucks.

Exact match

That’s not to say it does anything particularly original. At its heart Babo Crash Deluxe is yet another Bejeweled knock-off, tasking you with matching coloured gems by swapping adjacent pairs.

It has combos and troublesome special blocks and power-ups, just like any number of games that have gone before it. Even the ability to tilt your phone to affect the pull of gravity has been done numerous times before.

But it’s the way in which the game pulls together all of these elements that sets it apart.

Each level of the main Crash mode seems to introduce a new element to proceedings. In practice, this soon peters out, but by the time you’ve seen everything you’ll be in a rhythm that only the Game Over screen will be able to break.

I need a hero

Besides a more-exciting game structure (there are also time limited and timeless modes), the game’s power-up structure represents a serious ramping up of the action from previous match-three games.

Matching four blocks creates a unique 'Hero' block according to the colour which, when matched itself, will unleash its unique power.

These effectively act like power-ups from every other match-three game you’ve ever played, presenting variations on the mass-block-clearing theme. But it’s the way this is done, with such a sense of theatre, that sets it apart. You can even control some of the destructive rampages that ensue by tilting your handset.

There are other brilliant touches, such as the Overtime section that rounds off each level, effectively acting as a victory lap. Or the bomb that appears and must by guided to a random section of the level, actively encouraging you to employ the - let’s face it - often ignored tilt-function.

Little of what Babo Crash Deluxe does is massively innovative. But the way it reinvigorates the largely stagnant match-three genre by ramping up the action makes it feel extremely fresh.

Babo Crash Deluxe

Babo Crash Deluxe cranks the volume up on the match-three genre, introducing wildly entertaining power-ups and brilliantly varied play
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.