Mr Driller Deluxe
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| Mr Driller Deluxe

Despite the fact that it looks like just another block puzzler, Mr Driller Deluxe is more peculiar than you might think. Actually, it's pretty much unique. There are blocks, sure, and what's more they're separated with bold colours, but your relationship with them isn't the usual one of remote manipulation. Instead, you're in amongst them, and when you die, it's very likely because one has crushed you flat.

Likely but not certain, as there's another way for you to go: asphyxiation. Boring deeper and deeper into the ground, destroying blocks to create a passage, restricts your air supply. If you don't manage to collect enough vials of oxygen as you descend, you'll succumb to a nasty death, with your last seconds spent in a frantic dash for air.

Sadly, this sort of situation has been experienced by miners for hundreds of years, and that's exactly what Mr Driller is. His one objective is to drill deeper and deeper.

Each block represents another metre gained, and you have to make it to a depth of 500m, where, if you succeed, you drop from the suffocating earth into the safety of an underground village.

Between the surface and this village, blocks are arranged in random formations of like colours. You move left and right with '4' and '6' buttons, and '5' drills away a single block in whichever direction you're facing. Also removed are all of those blocks of a similar colour that are attached to the one you drill. In some cases, this means removing just one block. In others it means gutting a whole swathe of the chamber that's sometimes so vast you fall for several seconds through the darkness.

Then all of those blocks that were above the ones you removed hover in the air and begin to fall, crushing you if you don't get out of the way. If, however, a falling block comes into contact with another of the same colour on the way down, it sticks to it, forming a shelter over your head.

The rules of the game are simple then, but the pace can get so frantic that your performance improves by intuition rather than calculation as you try to develop a feel for the best routes to take. After the first couple of attempts, you might be convinced the game is flawed: you can make it all the way down by burrowing in a straight line, straying only to pick up oxygen vials, but this unconsidered approach will invariably see your countless indiscernible mistakes creeping around you like briars. Your score will also be pitiful.

Adding further variation, you get to choose from a surprisingly detailed list of characters, all of whom have different qualities. The default, Susumu Hori, is simply listed as the star of the game, and alongside brother Ataru and nemesis Anna Hottenmeyer, he has no special abilities.

Puchi the dog, meanwhile, can climb up two vertical blocks at a time, as opposed to the usual one, and robot Hollinger Z is able to withstand a single rock falling on his head. Taizo Hori, Susumu's father and star of Mr Driller's predecessor Dig Dug, can drill more quickly than the others, as befits a man of his considerable experience.

In practical terms, while these four ability variations do affect the gameplay, their main appeal is for the completist gamer, who can take each character down the 500m and 1000m holes, and as far as possible into the certain doom of Endless mode.

First devised in 1999, in its relatively short lifespan Mr Driller has become one of the best-regarded action-puzzle games, even if we didn't fancy the DS version much. This version is much better, but it's not perfect. Not quite action and not quite puzzle, still it manages to make the most of the two genres rather than languishing in the no man's land between them - so pick up your equipment; let's drill to victory.

Mr Driller Deluxe

Despite its generic block-puzzle looks, Mr Driller Deluxe occupies a gaming niche all of its own
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Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.