Super Gem Drop
Available from www.gamehouse.com or on one of the SynTax CDs.

                       Reviewed by Sue

This yet another Tetris clone and though at first I would have
said it's the least enjoyable of Gamehouse's games that I've
played so far, after playing enough to write this review, I'd
warmed to it considerably.

As you've probably guessed, in this game you have to stack 3 or
more identical gems to remove them, up, down or l-shaped left or
right, but not diagonally.  There are rather a lot of different
coloured and shaped gems - round rubies and diamonds, heart shaped
amethysts, lemon teardrops, lozenges of sapphire. It's
mouth-wateringly colourful. But with only 6 columns, you have to
double-up colours pretty quickly. Of course, the more gems you
remove in one go, the more points you score so its worth trying to
set up cascades of colour. This means you have to think ahead a
lot.

Diamonds, not surprisingly, are worth more points than any other
gems. But as in real life, coal can be turned into diamonds.  Yes,
after a few rounds, worthless lumps of coal join the dropping
gems. If enough other gems are dropped on top of them, they get
compressed and turn into diamonds. Later levels start with more
gems initially on the screen so by level 5 it's getting pretty
frantic. There's a bonus level between levels 4 and 5 where you
have to get as many points as possible by strategically grouping
the diamonds that drop. Tricky.

As with most of the other 'Super' games you have 19 goes before
the demo stops running. You can buy the full game online for
$19.95 with reductions if you buy more than one.





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