Bejeweled Twist, Popcap‘s latest blockbuster casual game, arrived on the 27th of October. We’re now into November and CasualGamerChick still doesn’t have a Bejeweled Twist review. Why?

We just can’t stop playing.

You’ll find yourself challenged with many great modes to Twist including: Classic, Zen, Blitz and Challenge mode. Although the core of this title revolves around Classic Mode, you’ll find huge replay value in the Challenge mode, a casual walk in the park with Zen and a frantic chase for points in Blitz.

Classic mode is where this game brings on the addiction. This is when we first learn to “twist” instead of “swap” as the entire point of Popcap’s latest addition in the casual market is turning the match-three style game on its side with their fresh game mechanics. Rather than simply swap gems around the screen looking for match-three, you’ll spin a “block” of four gems in 2×2 fashion. Sounds simple, but this small tweak changes Bejeweled Twist’s the game play entirely.

Any veteran casual gamer has the ability to “see” match-three pairs when playing Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest and other Bejeweled-like clones. The 2×2 gem spinning adds a new twist to how you play Bejeweled and will give you pause when you’re playing for the first time. You’re only allowed to twist the gems in a clockwise fashion, opening many new methods of matching three or more gems and expanding the possibilities to pattern matching.

Like classic Bejeweled, when you twist your gems and complete a match the gems will disappear and new ones will fall from the top of the screen. Along with new gems you’ll experience explosive gems with a timer that counts down after each turn goes by without clearing the bomb gem. As you advance in levels some gems will lock down, unable to twist, requiring you to clear them with a match to rid them from your screen. If you were a Chuzzle fan, you’ll appreciate the incorporation of these new features into Bejeweled Twist.

Classic mode builds level upon level in difficulty and, as you get better the game, Twist becomes much more difficult and challenging by introducing the bombs, coal and locking gems as intriguing and unnerving barricades to level completion. The pressure builds as bombs drop in more frequency with shorter countdown timers and less obvious matching sets. Matching four or more gems rewards you with a fire gem, the most efficient way to blow the coal off the puzzle screen.

The multiplier concept is new to Bejeweled Twist and takes a page from the Peggle experience. In Peggle, you receive more points by building multipliers as the ball bounces down through the pegs while, in Twist, your multipliers build up with consistent matching. Half the fun to Classic Mode involves the struggle with not losing your multiplier as you progress through a stage. Once you’ve hit the 10x multiplier, you’ll be rewarded with a cool looking fruit gem.

Rewarded a fruit gem for our 10x multiplier

Fruit Gems? Correct! The fruit gems first powerful ability is taking the place of the lowest ticking bomb on your puzzle screen. In many games we’ve found a big strategy of completing your 10x multiplier and obtaining a fruit gem when a bomb is ticking down near zero. The secondary advantage to having fruit gems involves a graphically awesome event of their removal via matching. Fruit gems offer a host of great point bonuses to bump up high scores and advance you, quickly, to the next level. If you’re good, you’ll find ways to make the fruit dance its way to bonus points using a Mega Fruit Bonus. Crazy.

Classic mode has high replay potential by the mere fact that you cannot restore your game mid-level after losing, requiring you to start back at level one. Although you’re prompted with a spinning wheel allowing you a ‘lottery’ style of game retries, it is harder to restore your “life” as you lose more puzzles. Eventually, poor progress is rewarded with a “Game Over” message. At first, starting back at level one seemed frustrating but it proves to increase your skills and grip you with an addiction which is hard to shake. You’ll also find yourself breezing through early levels and returning to the pain points as your experience in this puzzler increases.

Blitz Mode is a fast and furious battle to obtain as many points as possible in a short period of time. This mode isn’t for the faint at heart but adds more replay to an already jam packed casual gaming experience. Zen Mode is akin to Classic Mode without the bombs and other stressful obstacles.

Challenge Mode Offers Great Replay Value

Finally, Challenge Mode pits you against a host of pre-staged challenges to match n gems in n moves, chain a number of matches together along with many other goals to complete the stage. Each Challenge stage has a variant number of levels to complete and there are a large number of new challenges stages to unlock as you progress. Where Blitz is intense and Zen is relaxing, Challenge Mode is the thought provoking method of play, requiring you to use your brain in new and interesting ways.

The graphics to Bejeweled Twist are colorfully polished and exciting to watch. They use great explosion effects, “heat” style waves and smoke for the bombs, making this a graphically interactive masterpiece of casual proportions. There are a few 3D style effects as you fly from stage to stage, planet to planet, in a space ship. We’ve seen many casual games over the years but Popcap shows us why they’re not a smaller independent firm and has serious artistic crews involved with the making of the game.

The sounds are well suited for this style of play but do not give the same intense action feel as the Peggle stage clearing extravaganza. The graphics and sound compliment the game play and show a fine attention to detail.

Great graphical action

Overall, Bejeweled Twist isn’t as revolutionary as other Popcap titles, it is evolutionary in terms of match-three gaming. While some may say this is Bejeweled with a Twist, Popcap knows their bread and butter titles and changing the game play too much would not make this a Bejeweled style title at all. It’s important to pay homage to the classic game mechanics that made Popcap their bank while evolving the title using the experiences they’ve learned along the way. For USD $19.95 this is a hard title to pass up.

You’ll notice bits and pieces of Peggle, Chuzzle, Bookworm, Venice and others Popcap titles bundled in the fabric of Twist. The evolution of Bejeweled is complete giving other match-three style games the look of dusty old sameness.

This is going to be Popcap’s next “gem” of a game title. Demo or buy it for the PC now.