Customer Reviews
Zuma Deluxe - Addiction Alert
This game is awesome. Although I've completed the game (through level 13-1), I find myself going back to some of the harder levels, say starting at level 9, and reworking them (!) because the intensity level is so high, and the game is very addictive.
I eagerly await an update or version 2.0.
This is the best $20 I ever laid out for a piece of software. I even bought a separate copy for my mother, who agrees with everything in this review!
Enjoy - and be prepared to set aside a couple of hours or so per week.
Incredibly Addicting!
Zuma Deluxe is like several PC games in that the goal is to eliminate balls by shooting balls of the same color at the chain. For example, with Luxor, the shooter is at the bottom of the screen and your goal is to eliminate all of the balls.
In Zuma Deluxe, the goal is the same except that the frog shooter is at the *center* of the board and rotates 360 degrees. Chains of various colored balls snake towards an opening. If the balls reach that opening, you lose a life. (You get 3 lives per game, but can accrue additional lives if you score 30,000 + points if I recall).
There are quite a few puzzles within each Level; however, you have to complete ALL the stages in order to reach the next Level. For example, I'm on Level 6 which happens to have 6 Stages. I can't get past this tricky Stage 6, so I keep getting knocked back down to Stage 1 of Level 6.
Random balls will light up during gameplay and if you eliminate the chain that contains these particular balls, you get special temporary perks. For example, there are balls that will create a laser shot for accuracy, slow down the balls, stop the balls, reverse the balls, or fry all the surrounding balls (this one is my fave!).
Also, there is a coin that shows up randomly on the outskirts of the maze and if you hit the coin, you get extra points. You also get extra points for shooting chains in the middle of "gaps".
There are triangular mazes, circuituous square mazes, and even mazes with two openings. Perhaps the most tricky, however, are those that snake under one another, making it difficult to track the balls.
You can play two versions: Gauntlet and Adventure. You can choose to make the game full screen or small screen.
My only complaint is that I bought this game in the store and like Bookworm (another Pop Cap game), I had to re-download a game using a universal .exe patch in order to get the game to work. Without it, the game starts with a 60 minute "trial period" that won't allow you to play beyond it. This is a serious glitch that Pop Cap Games needs to deal with, because it affects other games, too (such as Insaniquarium). If you need the patch, un-install Zuma Deluxe and re-install using http://beta.popcap.com/pubfiles/PopCDFix.exe
I highly recommend this addictive PC game!
Dont follow the ball
This game is an arcade style shoot the ball at others of matching color type. The balls travel in mazes. There are many ways to earn bonus points. The balls travel faster at higher levels and they add more colors making it harder to get a match before the balls get past you and through the exit of the maze. This is one of those games where its easy to lose track of time. Thats the bad news. The good news is that for those days where you need a bit of mindless escapism, this game is excellent. One thing I have learned is to not watch the ball. I have made it all the way through level 13. There is an ending to this game so the writer does allow you that win. Before I was doing well I would set up and shot, watch the ball travel, then watch it blow up other balls. Then I realized, once you let the ball go, you should move on to the next shot. If you KNOW if the ball landed (you saw it land), you are watching the old ball travel instead of setting up the new shot. Your wasting time. The game sucks you into that because its so gratifying to watch something you shot blow something else up. Resist the temptation. Learn on the lower levels to make gap shots. You must be able to blow a hole through a closer level, then shoot through that to objects further away for bonus points. This bonus will slow things down enough to allow you to win up to the last level. The game goes up to one board of level 13. For those that havent bought the game yet, do so. This game is good clean fun for not much money. Once you buy it make sure you read the writing in between boards outloud. Its pretty amusing. This is a game that you will play for several days, forget about, and then rediscover again and again on your computer. So far I have thoroughly enjoyed every time I have run through this game.
