While I haven't played this version of Puzzle Quest, I've played Puzzle Quest on PC and PSP enough to know it's the best match-3 game bar none. Before Puzzle Quest, match-3 games were purely Bejeweled and its ilk - casual games with little purpose. Puzzle Quest gave actual game mechanics and purpose to the matches, turning every match-3 battle into an abstraction for an RPG activity - whether it's fighting, casting spells, crafting, taming a monster or something else. And it works -- it really does work. The game is enthralling despite being a little bit repetitive. There are always some more combinations of spells to try out and some more things to do. Towards the endgame, it gets kinda crazy and overpowered, but it's still fun, and it helps that there are multiple approaches and spell combinations to go for. When Puzzle Quest came out, I thought the game was amazing, but that it would be fleshed out even further by its sequels, making it feel even more like a full RPG experience. Strangely enough though, nobody's been able to replicate the experience of the original Puzzle Quest. Its sequels and spin-offs failed, and while there's a genre of free to play Puzzle Quest-likes on phones, they don't seem to create the same level of engagement, or perhaps their 'play until you run out of credits' design limits them. It was lightning in a bottle.
This is quite an enjoyable game, with a good sense of humor. You play a zombie eating brains and gradually taking over a city. The environments are ok: they don't look amazing, but they're decent for what they are. There are some very funny segments in the game, and on the whole, I had fun playing this. The weakest part of the game is probably the boss battles, which sometimes need to be played too many times to figure out what the devs want you to do.
Soldak games are ARPGs that focus not so much on their ARPG mechanics, but more on background stuff that's cooler. This particular game is a spiritual sequel to Depths of Peril, Soldak's first game, but it also includes innovations picked up from Din's Curse and Drox Operative. Two basic system power this game: 1. Quests that are dynamic, random, and may expire. Fail to do things in time, and bad things will get worse. This leads to many random, desperate, yet highly enjoyable situations. 2. Clans that compete against you exist in the world and have their own quests. Do their quests to improve relations with them, or attack them to defeat them. There are also a few other mechanics, such as survival elements -- vendors and health potions are rare and require foraging, and you need to take care of your few rag-tag survivors. This makes you pay close attention to the NPCs and lets you forge a connection with them. There's also a zombie mechanism where NPCs can be zombified and fight against you, or you can contract the zombie virus yourself, but it's a fairly minor element overall. The graphics have also been souped up since the last iterations. We now have bump-mapping and shadow casting, and outdoor areas are not just squares. While far from state-of-the-art, I find the graphics good enough and sometimes even excellent. If you're willing to put up with some jank, this game is more than worth your money.
Contrary to another review here, this is NOT the prequel to the famous Jane's Longbow 2. This is made by DI, which was one of the more minor, but still significant, sim makers. This is a decent sim, but it's not nearly as good as the Jane's series of heli sims.
