This Week’s WiiWare Release: Magnetica Twist
- Scribbled on June 30th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
- Filed in Casual Gaming, New Release(s), Nintendo Wii, Press Release, Puzzle, WiiWare
Wii owners can get their hands on Magnetica Twist (1000 points) later tonight (9 PM PST). Magnetica Twist is a port of a port and will probably be more familiar to you if I called it Zuma. Let me explain:
Magnetica Twist is a port of the 2006 DS game Magnetica, which is an adaptation of the 1998 arcade game Puzz Loop (or Ballistic). Puzz Loop was the inspiration for PopCap’s best-selling casual PC game, Zuma. “But what is Magnetica or Zuma or whatever the hell it’s called” you’re asking right now, and I’ll tell you.
Magnetica Twist is a light puzzle game where various colored marbles move along a track toward an exit point. These tracks often loop and twist back on themselves and they become more difficult as you progress. The player controls a marble shooter, which in this game is the Mii of your choice, which shoots colored marbles into the track trying to get at least three marbles of the same color next to each other, in order to make them disappear. Making marbles disappear is of paramount importance because if any of the marbles make it to the exit point the game is lost. The game has various modes of play, including multi-player, and power-ups which alter the rules somewhat. Nintendo is making the wii-mote controls a selling point, I’m hoping there’s an option to use normal controls, this game requires a great deal of aiming precision to get the marbles right where you want them and wii-motes just aren’t sensitive enough for that.
If you already have Zuma on your PC or Magnetica for your DS, there really isn’t any point to having this game. If you’re not a puzzle gamer you’re out of luck as well… Maybe next week?
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