Zuma Deluxe

                Demo from www.shockwave.com

                      Reviewed by Sue

Zuma is great fun! It's a very simple game but very addictive. I 
don't know who or what Zuma is, but it may be the little frog-
like creature in the middle of the screen that you control. The 
playing area is a channel full of coloured marbles. Zuma (we'll 
call him that for the sake of argument) has one of these 
marbles in his mouth. You can swivel him using the mouse and 
fire the marble he holds. If it lands next to more marbles of the 
same colour to make a chain or three of more, they explode 
and vanish, scoring you points. The remaining marbles close 
up, and this may also bring more like coloured marbles into 
contact, setting off a chain reaction. You score more points for 
this. You also score extra if you explode a sequence of marble 
sets - this is called a Chain Bonus.

Some marbles give you extra skills like accuracy, slowing 
down the marbles, or making them roll backwards. Yes, that's 
the crux of the game. Marbles are continuously entering from 
off the screen. They move along a track until they go through a 
sort of plug hole at the end. If that happens, you lose a life.

There are two ways to play the game. 'Adventure' takes you 
through a series of increasingly difficult levels, with tortuous 
tracks. In some cases there are two tracks and plugholes! 
'Gauntlet' pits you against one level that gets more difficult as 
you play. You start with four colour marbles - red, green, blue 
and yellow - but others gradually get added. I saw mauve, 
then a silver colour. Of course this makes it more and more 
difficult to get a set of three before you run out of time.

Though Zuma holds one marble in his mouth, you can click the 
mouse to swap from this one to the next one. This may help 
considerably when you're trying to get a set and time is 
running out. 

After a while, when an orange bar on the screen fills up 
because you've scored enough points, no more marbles enter 
the screen. The word "Zuma!" is chanted at that point. You 
can breathe a sigh of relief because you know you only have 
to clear the ones that are there. 

It's really frustrating when you realise a marble is teetering on 
the edge and you're just about to lose the level. You really 
want just one more go. 

The demo lets you play for an hour. It goes WAY too quickly. 
The full game costs $19.95.







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