Author Topic: Flash demo for Puzzle Quest Galactrix (Read 4597 times)

Cobra951 · « **on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:12:18 AM »

It's here. It doesn't mess around. Obliterated me once. I came back next round, but just barely.

Ghandi · « **Reply #1 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:22:31 AM »

Damn you. It's 2:30 am. This can only keep me up.

Edit: I'm terrible at this. Part of the problem is that I don't really have any strategy. And plus I don't really understand some of the rules. The instructions are a little lacking.

Cobra951 · « **Reply #2 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:37:57 AM »

Hehe! Sorry. (Not really.)

Ghandi · « **Reply #3 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:44:33 AM »

3 turns. 3rd turn the computer gets a super nova, which apparently depletes all of my gems and shields and gives him another turn to kill me instantly. What the hell?

And I still don't know what the purple or silver gems are for. I'm also unclear when I get an additional turn. I got a 4-of-a-kind once and it granted me an additional turn, but it hasn't since. I just got a 5-of-a-kind and it granted me one. Also, why does the trident laser say that my turn won't end when it clearly does?

Edit: Next game this bastard got another super nova. I'm a little pissed off that I can't win. I'm not even getting close.

idolminds · « **Reply #4 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:59:08 AM »

Tips:

Purple gems get you an extra turn once you hit 20.

Gems slide in in the direction you move them. So if you click a gem and have it move right to left to create your line, then the new stuff coming in come from right to left.

No idea what white gems do.

NEVER do the move the helpful hint system tells you. It always sets up the enemy to kick your ass on its turn.

Ghandi · « **Reply #5 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 01:01:15 AM »

The white ones fortify your shields once you get enough of them.

I finally won. Fuck that game. I can understand how there is some skill involved, but half of it just seems like luck to me. And I'm apparently pretty unlucky.

Edit: That was a little harsh. Fun game Cobra, thanks for posting.

I guess I just got a little pissed off. It's late.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #6 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 01:34:30 AM »

Im getting really lucky, I devastated the computer 3 times in a row.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #7 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 01:58:37 AM »

Okay he kicked my ass 2 more times, but then I came back and got him in the last round. I had the same luck as you Ghandi when I first started playing Puzzle Quest, it definitely takes some luck, but its also about playing your abilities at the right time.

wizall · « **Reply #8 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 04:53:37 PM »

I don't give a damn what anyone says; I'm getting this game the moment it's available on XBLA sometime in Feb. I put over 50 hours into the first one and didn't regret a moment of it.

TheOtherBelmont · « **Reply #9 on:** Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 04:56:38 PM »

That was pretty fun, I beat the computer two times in a row, but it seemed a little harder than the first Puzzle Quest. I'll probably consider getting this after I see some reviews, mainly because I'm hoping its not as buggy as the original. I'm liking the new sci-fi theme though.

idolminds · « **Reply #10 on:** Thursday, January 22, 2009, 10:56:48 AM »

Downloadable demo available. Has more stuff than the flash demo.

TheOtherBelmont · « **Reply #11 on:** Thursday, January 22, 2009, 02:51:35 PM »

Awesome, I'm definitely leaning towards getting this game after playing the demo. It's a pretty good improvement from the first game.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #12 on:** Friday, January 23, 2009, 04:06:10 AM »

Well Im sold, Im completely addicted to this.

idolminds · « **Reply #13 on:** Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 04:57:47 PM »

Full version is now available. Retail for both PC and DS, and you can buy the PC version from Impulse, Gamersgate, Direct2Drive, and Steam.

Pyro, you might be interested in the original PQ for your ipod. I guess its like $8 and works quite well. Probably the best portable version. Dunno if/when they'll do Galactrix.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #14 on:** Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 06:07:14 PM »

Yea I checked out the demo for PQ on there, its not bad and I dont think you get the full version when you buy it, just the first part of it. But another problem I found was that the gems were so small I could easily have a problem making the wrong moves.

wizall · « **Reply #15 on:** Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 07:00:44 PM »

I have to wait until the 360 version comes out, goddammit. It was supposed be a simultaneous release, but the 360 version was kicked to TBA. FUCK

Cobra951 · « **Reply #16 on:** Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 07:34:43 PM »

You know that's a money deal somewhere. The PC version of something this graphically unchallenging gives you the 360 version with little effort.

wizall · « **Reply #17 on:** Thursday, February 26, 2009, 12:37:31 PM »

Yeah, I figure money is a primary reason. And I would get the PC version, but I tried the PC demo and it wouldn't run on my laptop. My computer is now four years old, and even back in 2005 couldn't run games. This was intentional.

And, sheepishly I admit, I kind of like the achievements.

Xessive · « **Reply #18 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 06:42:15 AM »

Gamespot reviews PQ Galactrix... 5.5.. Sad.

Quote

The sequel to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords takes most of what was great about its predecessor and ruins it.

The Good

* At their best, battles can feel like games of chess.

The Bad

* Far too many battles are decided by luck
* No multiplayer matchmaking or leaderboards
* Protagonist is almost impossible to care about
* Story takes too long to get even remotely interesting.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #19 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 11:02:06 AM »

Damn, that's really harsh. I wonder if that's actually true. I believe Justin Calvert to generally be a sane reviewer, but I'm going to hold off judgment until more votes are in. Gamespy and Games Radar gave it 90 and 80, respectively. There are a bunch of 80+ reviews for it on DS as well if you check Metacritic.

Xessive · « **Reply #20 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 11:33:13 AM »

Quote from: Quemaqua on Sunday, March 01, 2009, 11:02:06 AM

Damn, that's really harsh. I wonder if that's actually true. I believe Justin Calvert to generally be a sane reviewer, but I'm going to hold off judgment until more votes are in. Gamespy and Games Radar gave it 90 and 80, respectively. There are a bunch of 80+ reviews for it on DS as well if you check Metacritic.

I usually check Metacritic to see the range of ratings. WHen they're this conflicted over a game I prefer to geta s much info as I can before I make a call on it too.

The Gamespot review caight my attention because it was the hardest on Galactrix.

So far, out of the 7 reviews, here's the breakdown:

3 love it
1 thinks it's passable
3 hate it

It's pretty tight.

The negative reviews seem to have graded so low based mostly on unmet expectations rather than actual flaws with the game.

Cobra951 · « **Reply #21 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 02:18:32 PM »

Quote from: Gamespot

It's true that not every battle is decided on luck, but enough of them are that frustration will set in before you're even close to investing the tens of hours that it takes to get through the story.

I've played some of this. I felt I was doing something wrong. I remember being hooked on the original almost immediately. I just couldn't get a sense of making progress in Galactrix. Sometimes I won, sometimes I got creamed, and it seemed to make no difference how much I learned or concentrated. Your character doesn't improve from one battle to the next, at least not that I could tell from my limited experience. So it feels like a series of luck-heavy boards. It gets tiresome quickly, and it has long memory-shuffling pauses in my system. So it was easy to give up on it. Reading the Gamespot review now gave me enough confidence in my impressions to post them. I thought it was just me before.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #22 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 04:06:14 PM »

See, I always felt like I sucked and won by luck half the time on the first one, so I don't really understand. That might partially have been due to the bugs I had to deal with on the bad PSP port done by the other company, but I dunno'.

Cobra951 · « **Reply #23 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 04:47:03 PM »

Luck rarely determined the outcome completely on any given battle in PQ. Here, it happens too often. I just tried again for about an hour. While I found more finesse and strategy, it can all still get completely overwhelmed by bad luck. I quit when I lost a battle I should have easily won, but mines kept coming in off the screen edges and lining up for the computer on many of my moves. There is no way to move strategically when so many tiles that will affect the very next move are unknown. I'm starting to think that the huge error in design here is the level of destruction caused by random mines. It took some skill and strategy to use the skulls in the first game, and they weren't anywhere near this quick to change the makeup of a board.

PyroMenace · « **Reply #24 on:** Sunday, March 01, 2009, 09:34:07 PM »

From what I played of PQ and this new one was that luck was just as much a factor on this one as was the last one. I always felt that games became more about strategy and skill the further you progressed in the story and gathered up more abilities. There was even a good amount of distaste for PQ because they were frustrated by losses with the way games played out. The reviewer seems to be stricken by this same problem so I'm going to ignore it. I played the crap out of the demo and I was pretty satisfied with it.

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Author Topic: Flash demo for Puzzle Quest Galactrix (Read 4597 times)