Drop it like it’s Block
7 Wonders of the Ancient World doesn’t exactly go out of its way in the complexity department. You’re presented with a box which is instantly filled to the brim with various colored stones, each adorned with glyphs or other ancient artwork. From there, you’re charged with shifting them up, down, left, or right in an effort to align three or more like stones. You can only move one stone at a time, and stones won’t budge unless they can truly create a linked sequence. Diagonals, you tricky bastards, aren’t part of the equation, only horizontal and vertical combos are allowed. Anyway, once you link the like-colored blocks, they’re vaporized; the remaining blocks drop down and the top of the container is instantly refilled with more blocks. Oh, and don’t forget, comboing larger block chains yields a higher point value as a reward. Ultimately, your goal is to achieve a set point total before time runs out. And there you have it, and yes, I know exactly what you’re thinking…
Hey, that Sounds a lot like Bejeweled
That’s because it is Bejeweled! 7 Wonders of the Ancient World tries to vary the formula through a slight change in context. Sure, the overall game is the same, but now you’re applying your skills toward something more than points. You see, your epic arrangement of blocks is helping to construct the ancient wonders of the world, all seven of them! From a gameplay standpoint this doesn’t really mean anything, but a couple concessions are thrown your way to assist in the fantasy department. Occasionally some bonus blocks will fall in the mix and make evacuating their presence a priority. You’ll see small sprites of workers haul the blocks away once you flush them out of your grid, along with the background featuring the ongoing construction of whatever mega epic you happen to be completing. Beating a puzzle will net you a percentage toward finishing a Wonder, and completing that percentage will allow you to move on to the next one.
There are a few more kinks thrown in to try and make it not seem like a complete rip off of Bejeweled. Once you start racking points up some special blocks begin to appear; the lightning ball rips away every block in a horizontal line, the fire ball blasts everything in a horizontal and vertical line, and the golden flower arbitrarily destroys a boatload of random blocks around the grid. While these powerups are sometimes appreciated, they mostly serve as a skill-less way to rack up a ton of points. They completely unbalance an otherwise well adjusted game. Sure, you have to earn your powerups, but the net point value from randomly clear a whole line of blocks pales in comparison to playing the game normally. Why spend five minutes engineering a six block chain when you can just as easily grab more points with a powerup? 7 Wonders of the Ancient World was a little on the shallow side as it is, and easing up on the difficulty (which, by the way, features no level of adjustment anyway) doesn’t do much for replay value.
Shadow of the Colossus
The whole Seven Wonders motif serves its purpose as a breeze of additional content, but, in the age of Puzzle Quest, feels wholly inadequate. For those not in the know, PQ is an irrationally ambitious title that paired a puzzle game (also a Bejeweled-like) with RPG elements and successfully cranked out a wildly entertaining title. Since its release last spring it’s become the blueprint of how to perfectly extend the depth and value of a simple puzzle game. Sure, the basic game can lose its flavor fairly quickly, but if you’re actually focused on and working toward a higher goal, as is the case with PQ, it becomes an entirely different undertaking. In this light, PQ is a blazing ball of fire, where as Seven Wonders is a candle flickering in the wind. Both games are cut from the same cloth, but why waste ten minutes pretending to build monuments when you can effortlessly drop forty hours into an all out adventure?
Perhaps I’ve been too harsh. Seven Wonders isn’t a total disaster; it just fails to compete with its peers. Still, the game does throw a hint of additional content your way. Aside from the main campaign, there’s also a Rune Quest side game. This mode alters the formula slightly; instead of the entire field at your leisure, you’ll have to eliminate a set number of like colored blocks before the timer runs out. It isn’t all that different from the main game, but it does add a hint of additional content to a title severely lacking in the features department.
For the audio/visual crowd, Seven Wonders will do little to please your senses. The blocks drop in a flash and are complimented by a smooth “marbles dropping in a bag” noise, which successful in that it never becomes annoying. Each wonder is adorned with a contextually fitting but incredibly generic background theme. For example, hum your favorite tropical tune and listen as it syncs up for half the environments. The backgrounds are always busy with the ongoing construction of various wonders, complete with semi-hilarious workers shuffling to and fro. Nothing amazing, but, all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.
