Reviews: Faces

FACES by Karl-Johan Nillson

GAME TYPE: PUZZLE

PLAYERS: ONE

DIFFICULTY: VARIES

TARGET: DESTROY THE

FACES AND BEAT YOUR

BEST SCORE

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

MIMIMUM: 486 SX WITH

4 MEGS RAM

RECOMMENDED AT LEAST

486 DX2 WITH 8 MEGS RAM

SOUND CARD OPTIONAL

Upon loading up Faces for the first time, I was given the following warning:

'This game has been rated HA: Highly Addictive!

Extensive play may lead to a damaged social life!

Don't press "shift" to continue, quit while you still can!"

And believe me, I should have paid more attention to the warning! Now I'm hooked!

Faces is an intricately designed Klik & Play puzzle game. In it you are a Pac Man lookalike who must drop 'starbombs' on the multiplying Faces below.

If the starbomb hits a Face which shares your colour, that Face is destroyed. If the starbomb

hits a different coloured Face it remains but you and it swap colours! This may sound complicated but don't worry, the game is simplistically easy to play and great fun.

There are also two different types of game to play, GAME A and GAME B (reminiscent of

another extremely addictive puzzler, Tetris).

In GAME A you must destroy the Faces before they reach the top of the screen. The

problem is the more Faces you destroy, the quicker the ones below multiply!

GAME B plays similarly but in it there is an indestructible grey Face! You must try and keep

this as low as possible by swapping colours with it and dropping it on a lower Face. Again the increasing speed keeps you on the edge of your seat!

The graphics in Faces are mainly clipart but have been nicely reworked and reshaded. In the

background is a simplistic black and white picture of a Victorian cottage which looks pretty without being distracting.

The ingame music is very suiting; jingly and - well, Russian (again shades of Tetris!).

Faces is extremely playable and the prospect of beating your best score will have you playing again and again.

All in all Faces is a very polished, stylishly executed piece of programming. It's a game that doesn't seem to think it is a Klik & Play game!

GRAPHICS 90%	Characters very nicely reworked, although clipart.
MUSIC 92%	The music is very suiting and the ingame tune is distinctly Russian, giving the game a 'Tetrisy' feel.
SFX 92%	The sounds really add a feel to the whole experience.
GAMEPLAY 97%	Extremely playable, and very responsive. Easy to pick up and hard to put down!
LASTABILITY 96%	You'll come back to Faces time and again to beat your best score and better your technique.
OVERALL 93%	Faces is a brilliant piece of work. A joy to play and incredibly addictive.

SUGGESTION: A two player version of Faces would be brilliant!

Faces can be downloaded at Silky's New Games Page.

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