Game Rant: Egg Mania Eggstreme Madness

Developer: HotGen
Publisher: Kemco
Platforms and Release Dates (US): Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox (September 11, 2002), Playstation 2 (September 12, 2002), Gameboy Advance (September 16, 2002)
Genre: Puzzle

Egg Mania Eggstreme Madness is a peculiar puzzle game, and it does a decent job of it.

Most puzzle games have you destroying lines or groups/sets of pieces, Egg Mania however tasks you with building a high tower with various pieces. At the start, you free fall down to the bottom where you start building your tower. The goal is to use the pieces to build up your tower and reach the blimp you fell from the start. The standard pieces come in various shapes and sizes from 1 block big to 5 blocks big. You catch the pieces by walking into them, and you can rotate them in 90 degree increments to fit them in the play field. You can also drop the piece if you don't want to use it. Pieces are always falling, so you have to grab the ones you need before they fall. You are trying to outrun the water, water constantly fills the play area, and if it catches up to the top of your tower, you lose. You have to make sure to fill in all the rows of your tower. You have a meter at the bottom that fills with each row you leave open, when it fills up, all the rows that are incomplete will crumble and shorten your tower. Water will also destroy incomplete rows when the water line reaches the incomplete row. When you complete a row, you get extra blocks called Trick Bricks in your area that boost the height of your tower. If you comeplete multiple rows in succession, as in each piece you lay down completes at least one row, you start a combo, and all the Trick Bricks accumulate and raise your tower by that number of bricks. If you complete 2 or 3 rows at once, the amount of Trick Bricks you get are doubled or tripled respectively. Along with the pieces, items drop as well, that help you or hinder your opponent. Cement fills in 6 Bricks worth of space, High Tops makes you really high, Lightning Bolt will cause a lightning cloud to appear on your opponent's field, Hammers destroy incomplete rows on your opponent's field, and Bombs will blow up pieces when they count down. Bombs can be thrown back and forth between both players before they explode, so watch out! You can drop Hammers, Bombs, or Cement if you don't want to use them. Enemies will also appear on the play area, these enemies will either take away the piece/item you are currently holding or knock you into the water and take time to recover. The gameplay is interesting and fun for a bit, but it can get slightly tiring after a while.

There are a bit of game modes to play. Egg Mania is the standard mode, you can compete in a series of matches vs the CPU to reach the end or compete against a 2nd player to get to the top first. Against the CPU, you start with a set amount of continues, and you earn a continue for each match you win. If you lose all your continues, you lose and have to start over. Bomb mode is the reverse, you start with a high tower and have to use bombs to destroy your opponent's tower, first to have the water catch up loses. Solo mode is single player mode where you get as many points as you can, you keep going up different towers until you lose. Survival mode is an Endless Egg Mania mode vs the CPU, you keep going until you lose. Custom allows you to tweak various settings, you can easily handicap things to help even out the players. Tournament mode is an up to 8 player tournament play, it follows a standard tournament format to determine the victor.

Bottom Line: Egg Mania Eggstreme Madness is a different take on a puzzle game, and it does it fairly decent. The gameplay is solid, but it can get tiring after a while. A 2nd player can help extend the life. This is worth at least a Play or Rent.