Reviews

Chime – Xbox 360 Review (Xbox Live Arcade)

Reviewed by AceGamez on February 5, 2010

Chime - Xbox 360 Review (Xbox Live Arcade) | read this item

Do you feel like making the world a better place today? Zoe Mode’s music-based block puzzler Chime is the first charity title released by non-profit publisher OneBigGame. The game costs 400MS and 60% of your payment is donated to either Save the Children or Starlight Children’s Foundation. Good times. Although the game is cheap, I imagine a lot of gamers will be turned off by the word ‘charity’ as it may imply that the game isn’t that good, but in fact it’s fantastic, well up there with other notable Xbox Live Arcade music titles such as Lumines! and Every Extend Extra Extreme. Chime puts an incredibly fresh spin on the genre, delivering an experience that is as addictive as it is mesmerising.

Part of the allure comes from the music selection itself and although it is only comprised of six tracks, each of the tunes draws you in with haunting simplicity before erupting in a crescendo of rolling synth, electronic effects or pounding beats. It’s worthwhile to note that each of the six songs was donated by each artist for absolutely no fee and while the track list may seem sparse, the room for DLC expansion is vast. On musician duties we have Moby, Philip Glass, Lemon Jelly’s Fred Deakin, Markus Shulz and Paul Hartnoll from the now defunct electronic duo Orbital. Each track features several instrumental components that will build up depending on how you play and it truly is breathtaking when some of the tracks, particularly ‘brazil’ by Philip Glass, kick into high gear.

The game plays out on a grid like the majority of block puzzlers, but shapes are static as opposed to cascading down the screen, with the option to rotate each component to make them fit. You are completely free to place blocks wherever you please within this space with the aim of filling the entire grid before the time limit runs out. When you create a group of blocks together you will form a ‘quad’ and this shape can be built upon by adding more blocks around it. There is also a beat line that flows from left to right along the grid in time with the music. When the line passes through your quads, it flattens them, allowing you to place more blocks on top. The aim is to flatten quads over every square on the grid and although the game sounds complicated without seeing it in motion, you will grasp the basics within few seconds of playing.

The music element is rather clever, with new sounds played each time the beat line passes through a shape or quad. Height determines pitch, horizontal placement effects timing and the size of your quad adds a different instrumental or vocal element. This is similar to Lumines! but rather than playing one sound effect you feel like you are actually in control of building up the song. However, if you make a quad but leave part of a shape un-flattened, the outstanding block will lose life each time the beat line sweeps over it. If you fail to flatten any outstanding shapes before a block dies than you lose your multiplier and all stray shapes vanish. If you are quick enough, you can delay this effect and keep your multiplier ticking over to ridiculous heights, but juggling flattening quads over the whole board and keeping blocks alive makes for quite a hectic experience.

You only need to flatten quads over 50% of each grid to qualify, but nailing the full 100% restarts the grid and awards you with a hefty point bonus. You will start over with a fresh grid but your time will remain, underlining that every second really does count. In theory, you could finish a grid more than three times and end up with a whopping 300% completion, but to do this you will really need to think fast and not slip up. Each song comes with its own grid and variety of block shapes, both becoming more complex as you progress, so practice will be required to climb up the online leaderboards. Thankfully, each time you play a stage, you will unlock it in free play mode that lets you play at your leisure without fear of failure or the pressure of a time-limit. Timed grids can be played with either 9, 5 or 3 minute time limits, with the latter proving a real challenge to players who really want to put their skills to the test.

Things do get a bit annoying when score and multiplier text flashes up across the grid, smack bang over the section you are trying frantically to complete. The same goes for whenever a friend comes online or you unlock an achievement and it can get really annoying. That aside, the visuals deliver a minimalistic, crisp quality that sets the screen alight with flashing colours and flourishes of flowers or musical notes whenever you flatten a large quad. It’s all it has to be really, as anything else would prove too distracting when you are scrambling around in a panic trying to rack up massive combo chains.

While Chime lacks multiplayer options, it is difficult to see how a second player could be brought into the mix. Allowing two players to share the same grid and compete for grid territory could have been a possibility but again, for 400MS this is already a hefty package due to the immense replay value. It really is one of those games that makes you think ‘Oh go on then, I’ll have another go, even though it is almost midnight and I have a Chime review to write.” You can see I’m clearly speaking from experience here, but it really does have that effect on you.

Sure, the game is a superb effort as a charity drive, but I see it more as a social experiment. Chime should easily warrant a purchase from anyone that enjoys block puzzlers, but will the charity status help or hinder Zoe Mode and OneBigGame’s efforts. Maybe an achievement of 50G for simply buying the game and doing your bit will be decent enough bait to lure in gamers on the fence? Maybe not, but rest assured, this is an incredible, generous effort from the developer.

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