Eliminating bomb gems with hastily ticking timers is another excellent twist, and it brings along a heavy air of tension. One of the smartest spins demands the elimination of a high number of gems in a small number of turns. It also subtly teaches new techniques along the way. The Quest also includes its own distinct gameplay variants to test your abilities. I became better as I learned through failure. About half the missions don't stray too far from the rest of the game, but the tiered, tough structure is where I really had to step up my game. Its 40 objective-based stages have a healthy diversity of gradually tougher challenges. The lengthy Quest mode is a showcase theater for these fancy-pants new features. Lightning is the equivalent mode here, but it's all about your score, as the letdown of a leaderboard is as plain as they come. I miss the competitive tracking used to throw down in hectic, minute-long Blitz matches this time around, too. I'd love to try building better hands than my buddies. That game's multiplayer component could have gone a long way toward competitive Bejeweled 3. Bejeweled 3 is missing some stuff from earlier versions, like the Twist mode found in Bejeweled Blitz Live. Poker also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. It's necessary, though, otherwise you'll end up with nothing but pairs. It's not for the actual poker I like it so much, but taking my time to think a few turns ahead before making a move. Tacking Bejeweled onto existing games is a bit of a hokey and rudimentary way of adding variety, but this is actually pretty interesting. The highest value of your hand is the number of points you receive. Each match assigns a card (the gem color) to one of five cards. The layered strategy there is satisfying in the same way as the game's spin on poker. Even without a timer there's an enormous amount of pressure to play perfectly. Every time they made their way up I worried. I had to analyze as many aspects of the layout as possible to avoid sending the little critters to their delicious doom. Linking your new flapping friends to two appropriately shaded gems sends them to safety, so you're forced to find the fastest means of freeing them before a spider gobbles 'em up at the top.
Special butterfly gems ascend the board with each turn. Butterflies mode, for instance, is a terrific test of perception. The unlockable gameplay types, earned simply by dabbling in the already available modes, each bring a bit of innovation to the table.
The simplicity of Bejeweled gives PopCap room for creative flexibility, and the developer is increasingly clever when it comes to reinvigorating the familiar. Bejeweled 3 does this by expanding on and adding to the formula in unexpected ways.
Yet each new release still manages to rekindle my compulsive desire to destroy shiny shapes. The core gameplay - aligning three or more like-colored crystals into rows or columns - hasn't changed in years. This particular obsession isn't anything new, of course. Suddenly, it's hours beyond bedtime, and when I hit the hay, gems start dropping in my dreams.
What starts as a stress-free flirtation fast becomes an unwavering, failure-free fixation. Obliterating sparkling jewels here offers the same cathartic release of classic Bejeweled with the added bonus of impunity. Misleading though its title may be, the Zen mode in Bejeweled 3 embodies everything I adore about the match-three puzzle genre. There is something decidedly un-Zen about the sounds of pirate-themed melodies and exploding gems.
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