The second week of Microsoft's new House Party promotion brings us Bejeweled Blitz, a revamped version of the Facebook game - and is easily one of the highlights of the promotion - for me, anyway. Next week's game, Beyond Good & Evil, looks pretty interesting too though, so keep an eye out!
Bejeweled Blitz
Price: 800 Microsoft Points (about £6.80)
The odds are you've played Bejeweled before, in some form or another - or even one of the many Bejeweled-alikes around. The aim of the game is to swap two gems around to make a match of three or more of the same colour - once you've done that, they'll explode and you'll be awarded some points, while groups of more than three having slightly more explosive consequences... And while that doesn't sound too interesting on paper (or a screen), once you get playing, it's almost dangerously addictive. Bejeweled Blitz is a sixty second race to get as many points as you can, over two different game modes. The Classic mode is just straight-forward swapping two gems around to make sets of three or more, while the new Twist mode has you rotating a square of four gems to make matches, in a similar way to Hexic, the game that comes pre-loaded on your Xbox hard drive. Bejweled Blitz also gives you the opportunity to battle against your friends - either online or offline - and with a demo now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace, you've got nothing to lose. Get online, and get downloading!
Explosive...
Approximate value of Microsoft points in pounds is based on buying the points direct from Microsoft through the Xbox dashboard - equivalent price in pounds will vary depending on where you bought your points.
