Meteos Wars Review

I hate to say it but when I first started up Meteos Wars I didn’t think I was going to like it, from the gaudy visuals to the blasting technopop it rubbed me the wrong way right from the beginning, which is why it’s surprising I’m totally addicted to the game.

I came to Meteos Wars honestly having never heard of the title let alone played the version that originally appeared on the DS (as I found out later), thankfully you’d never know with the title getting 720p visuals, Dolby Digital sound and local or online multiplayer (2 players).

Meteos Wars is the latest release from Q Entertainment, well known for the popular Lumines series and EveryExtendExtra and you can definitely hear it with absolutely everything in the game making some kind of noise, whether that’s you trying to clear the screen in time with the music or the different sound effects present on each “planet”.

Whether you’re playing against the AI, a friend locally or a complete stranger over Xbox Live the gameplay is the same, blocks fall from the top of the screen with each block having a different color and graphic, to clear the screen you simply match up 3 or more of the same blocks  vertically or horizontally though you can only move blocks up or down not left or right.

There are more than 20 different “planets”, each planet has a different block, audio and visual style, a different type of gravity (explained in a moment) as well as the likelihood of a certain block style dropping.

Where Meteos Wars gets really interesting is how it incorporates gravity into the game, when you match blocks horizontally they transform into a platform that rockets towards the top of the screen taking all the blocks on top of it along for the ride, the more you have on top of the platform, the tougher it becomes to get it out the top of the screen, if you have too many blocks on top of your “platform” then it might only make it halfway up the screen before it starts slowly lowering back down, with the new blocks falling from the top of the screen landing on your platform adding to the weight.

If you happen to match blocks vertically the resulting rocket instantly flies out the top of the screen taking all the blocks on top of it along for the ride, you can use this in combination with the horizontal “platforms” to push the entire platform out the top of the screen in one go, you can even make patterns on platforms that are already rising or flick some blocks from the bottom of the screen up to a platform.

All the blocks that make it out of the top of your screen rain down on the other players screen, so it makes sense to try and get as many out of your screen as possible in the shortest amount of time, as you clear more away from your screen you also fill up a meter where once it’s full you can activate a special “weapon” against your opponent, there are different special “weapons” with only one type usable on each planet (four types in total).

Special weapons screw with your opponent, whether that’s dropping in a pile of blocks that can’t be matched with anything or zapping out entire rows of bricks, you can also screw with your opponent using the triggers on your controller, by holding them down you speed up time (so increase the rate that bricks are falling by) for both you and your opponent at the same time, once you have no space for new bricks you lose, so speeding up time when their screen is almost full is always good for a laugh.

As for modes it’s roughly what you would expect from a title like this, you have Mission mode (where you can unlock additiona lplanets), attack mode and vs mode, there’s also multiplayer which is a great deal of fun when you have another player in the room, not that much fun if you have to play online due to lag and player scarcity.

I found the game a boatload of fun, my two complaints are that the tutorial is hidden away in the settings menu with it consisting of just a few basic screens and the controls don’t move nearly as fast as I would have liked (it can be a pain getting completely from one side to the other). While the game does has a storyline (text backstory in the options menu) it can safely be ignored because it’s un-necessary, you also have an “alien” that represents yourself that you can collect accessories for, but again it’s completely un-necessary to the whole experience.

A solid arcade game that’s lots of fun to play with friends but if you’re playing by yourself I find it hard to recommend (at least for the casual player), download the trial and give it a go, then hit me up on Xbox Live!

Direct Download Links - 172mb

Trial Game

Full Game