Vid Grid Reviewed by Sue I enjoy playing puzzles games and I also enjoy watching music videos. So when I saw Vid Grid for sale cheaply in Makro and saw that it combined both of these favourite things, I was thrilled. Sadly the promise didn't live up to expectations - but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself ... Vid Grid is a puzzle game in which you unscramble music videos against the clock. Sounds like fun? That's what I thought too, as it reminded me of Flix, the animated jigsaw puzzle game which I reviewed in Issue 64 and thoroughly enjoyed. Vid Grid sounded as though it was taking the concept one step further with recognizable videos rather than fractals and other abstract patterns. I must admit that the packaging looked a bit cheap, which surprised me because it came though Virgin. Still, shouldn't judge a book, or a game for that matter, by its cover, so I settled down to play it. Annoyance number one. When you go to play the game, it insists on a 640x480 display with 256 colors. I normally use a high color setting at 1024x768, so every time I wanted to play the game, I had to change the resolution, then put it back after so that I could return to work. Finally into the game, I discovered that Vid Grid consisted of five levels, and to solve each of these you had to unscramble nine music videos from the following artists - Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel, Guns N' Roses, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Soundgarden and Van Halen. Only one video is included from each artist - eg Sledgehammer from Peter Gabriel and Cryin' from Aerosmith - so the variety comes from the way the puzzle is constructed rather than from the actual videos. The levels naturally get harder as you progress. The videos can be changed and solved in several ways. First there's the number of pieces which it's divided into, from 3 by 3 up to 6 by 6 pieces. There are also progressive puzzles which can, for example, start with 3 by 3, but when solved redivide into 4 by 4 and so on, up to 3-4-5-6 puzzles which go in turn from 9, 16, 25 and 36 pieces. Secondly there's the types of puzzle movement. Some are Drag and Drop which allow you to swap pieces with the mouse. Perfection is a variation of Drag and Drop where the video rescrambles if you put a piece in the wrong place. Slider puzzles are one with one empty space and you can only slide pieces into that space, up, down, left or right. In the basic Slider game, the blank piece is always the bottom right corner but in a variation called Random Corners it can be in any of the four corners. Thirdly there's the orientation of the video. Normal is self-explanatory. In Upside Down, all the pieces are upside down and you can't turn them. In Inverted Pieces, some pieces are upside down and you can flip them using the right mouse button. By combining these three types, such as in a combination of 4 by 4, Drag and Drop, and Normal, the game becomes even more entertaining. In Custom mode, you can select your own combinations so you can test out different combinations and play ones which you like as often as you like, refining your technique and improving your speed. Your progress is scored, with best times being displayed, and your score depends on the speed in which you solve the puzzles, with bonuses added at the end of each level. Sadly, as I suspected from the packaging, the quality of the game isn't very good, partly due to the low resolution used. The videos are grainy and sometimes jerky. Even the sound occasionally gets choppy. But I was still enjoying the game until Level Three. On that level, Slider puzzles were used for eight out of the nine videos, and I just can't do them! I can't solve them when they are plastic puzzles I hold in my hand, and when they are static. Animated ones - no chance. So that was it for me. I couldn't go any further. Vid Grid is consigned to the 'given up' shelf and though I may get it down again one day to play some of the puzzles in custom mode, I'll never see the congratulatory message at the end - or even know if there is one! Shame ... - o -