Chime Super Deluxe Review - PS3

Imagine you are the geeky looking wizard Harry Potter for a moment. You’ve just got back to your dorm room after watching Hermione Granger take a shower, she wasn’t aware you were spying of course (thanks to your father’s handy cloak of invisibility). Well earlier you had agreed to go scrumping with that git Ron Weasley but now you just fancy a night in with your PlayStation 3, and who could blame you?

The problem is you don’t have anything decent to play because that old git Professor Dumbledore has forbidden anyone to play first person shooters since the Hogwarts massacre of 2003. What’s worse is that you can’t even play online because Hogwarts still hasn’t got broadband access, damn BT and their unwillingness to roll out copper in imaginary rural areas.

So you decide to make your own game by mixing together a few things in your cauldron. First you throw in a few building blocks that have been laying around the place; following that up with the stash of LSD that you’d been saving for the prom. After letting the mixture bubble for a while your attention is drawn to your roommates music collection; it’s all mostly new age crap but he does have Moby’s 2008 album ‘Last Night’ still sealed in cellophane. Without hesitation you unwrap the shiny plastic disc and drop it into the mixture.  Twenty minutes or so later the concoction is ready and a new game is born - that game is Super Chime Deluxe for PS3 and here is the review.

 
There is almost no doubt in my mind that last year you missed a rather unique game called Chime which was released on XBox Live Marketplace and Steam. In short Chime was an addictive musical puzzle game that looked a bit like Tetris and sounded like a steamy naked yoga session with Carol Vorderman. Well this time around PlayStation 3 owners have no excuse to gloss over the game because it has been re-released with a brand new name; Chime Super Deluxe, an exclusive multiplayer mode and even a handful of additional new tunes.



So what is the game actually about? Well it’s funny you ask because I just went to the official website of the game to find out and here’s what it says: Place blocks, build quads, get coverage, make music. In other words; you need to place Pentomino blocks onto a grid to create solid shapes consisting of four or more pieces. This is building a quad, and to beat the stage, you need to fill the whole thing with quads which is a lot harder than you might think. Why? Well if you don’t make perfect quads with your shapes then any left over pieces remain on the board, this potentially can help you make new quads but invariably they’ll actually just get in your way until they eventually disappear. I said 'quads' a lot of times there didn't I?

What has this got to do with making music then? The clever part is that the game board isn’t just a board, it’s a musical instrument of sorts. All the while you mess around with the blocks a peaceful music track is playing gently in the background - as you place blocks onto the grid you are also adding notes seamlessly into the backing music. What I love about this is that you are effectively creating a brand new remix of each song every time you play. With random block sequencing it means the chances of you playing the same board in exactly the same way are very remote indeed, if not impossible.

Here are just a few of the songs you can expect to hear in the game:

• Tender Hooks by Plaid
• Play With You by Jorden Milnes
• Brazil by Philp Glass
• Ooh Yeah by Moby
• Sympathy by Joe Hogan

In reality it doesn’t matter how good the music is (but yes it is very good) because making the remix doesn’t really do anything except vary things up for your ears - the actual block play is where everything really happens. The idea of the game is to completely fill the game board but doing so within 3, 6 or 9 minutes is damn tricky.

Thankfully, they’ve made things a tad easier; to unlock the next game board you only need to cover at least cover 50% of the grid - of course you won’t be getting any highscores that way but at least you’ll not be stuck on the same board each time. Oh did I mention that each board gets progressively harder to fill because the shape changes? No, well I have now!

Chime Super Deluxe is a nice looking puzzle game with bright crisp HD visuals and a great selection of backing tunes. It will never replace Tetris, but is much better suited for chilling after a stressful day at work. If though, you do want some frantic fun, and you have some extra Dual Shock controllers handy, then why not invite your mates around to play with you? The Co-Op and Versus modes ramp things up significantly and I can predict a few raised voices bellowing in anger when someones quad has been stolen.

Sadly it is my job to inform you that there is no online play over PSN. Yup - I know it’s a ruddy great shame because CSD would be very suited to it. Don’t ask me why it’s not there because I don’t know!

Chime Super Deluxe scores 8 out of 10 and is available for €9.99/£7.19 on the PlayStation Network Store.