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Mac|Life has posted a new review of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. The game, available for Intel Mac owners, combines elements of the popular match three genre with a role playing game adventure. Mac|Life gave Puzzle Quest a score of 4 out of 5.

From the review:

The game begins with you creating a character and going through a brief tutorial. After that, the Queen of Etheria sends you out on quests to save the kingdom from the evil Lord Bane. As you move your character around the board, you encounter enemies that you must defeat through turn-based, head-to-head, match-three puzzles. You acquire “mana,” which are different-colored jewels that are stored beside the board and spent to cast spells that strengthen your character or weaken your opponent. Matching skull pieces causes direct hits against your enemy’s life force, and if his reaches zero before yours, you win. With the various combos, power-ups, spells, and special items available, Puzzle Quest can keep you engaged far longer than a basic, single-player, noncompetitive puzzle title.

The story unfolds in cut-scene conversations between your character, other creatures you recruit into your party, and the various people who send you on your quests. The dialogue is forgettable, but luckily you can click through these sections quickly and get back to the puzzles. As you gain experience, you level up, and you can spend gold earned in battles on better armor and special weapons, which are needed to win the boss battles. You can even spend gold to build up your own citadel, where you can take prisoners, forge new items from “runes” won in skirmishes, learn new spells, train mounts you can ride into battle, and more. The customization options and the strategy involved in determining which items and spells you equip yourself with result in a deep, addicting game that’s different every time. Load and save times are practically nil, but if you don’t want to get bogged down in a quest, Instant Action mode lets you jump right into head-to-head puzzles against the computer’s AI.

Mac|Life: Puzzle Quest: CotW Review

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Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

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