The Xbox Live Arcade games were an ingenious idea. It’s perfect for the
solitary, yet competitive gamer. Scores from people around the world are
saved and posted online for all to see. Now you can play against others,
but don’t have to lose your turn at the controller.

It’s also perfect for the old school video gamer like myself. As technology
has evolved so has the difficulty of the video games. Tutorials are almost
a must for the complex new age games. However, the arcade games that are
available on the Xbox 360 take me back to what made me fall in love with
video games in the first place. The simplicity of them. Too many things in
life require instructions, I prefer it when my entertainment does not.

Take Zuma for example, the instructions for this game come in four simple
illustrations, which you don’t even need to look at in order to figure out
how to play the game. These are the kinds of games that I grew up on; just
pick up the controller and play. They are simple and self-explanatory games
that are just as much fun as the more complex, in-depth games that cost
fifty to sixty dollars a pop (Zuma costs about ten dollars). Careful
though, it’s very addictive. I’ll be in front of the screen for a good five
to six hours, but it feels like only two.

Zuma doesn’t have a story line and it has only one character; a frog. The
frog stays in one spot on the screen and rotates in a circle; that’s all.
The goal of the game is to get rid of all the balls in the puzzle that
surround the frog. To get rid of the balls your frog shoots colored balls
out of his mouth by pressing the A button. The goal is to match up the
colors in rows of three or more. Once you match them up they disappear;
shortening the chain of balls.

The chain of balls increase in number as you try to get rid of them. They
are consistently moving toward a mouth at the end of the puzzle. When the
chain gets too close to the mouth it opens up preparing to swallow them. If
the balls reach the mouth you lose the game. The balls will become little
bombs, pause buttons, or backwards arrows that help you out in a pinch. If
you hit a row of three or more that contain these items it will either
explode a very large area, pause the movement of the chain, or move the
chain backwards; depending on which helper ball that you knock out.

There are two modes for this game; adventure and gauntlet. The adventure
mode progresses in difficulty incorporating more ball colors and speed as
you climb through the levels. Each level has a certain number of stages to
complete before your game will be saved so that you can continue at that
higher level even after you die. The number of stages in the levels also
increases as you progress in adventure mode. Eventually this mode can be
beaten which will result in an achievement award.

Gauntlet mode is just a matter of survival. The balls never stop coming.
As you progress in difficultly the speed at which the balls come increases
and more ball colors are thrown at you just like in adventure mode. There
are four different levels with seven stages in each of them; rabbit, eagle,
jaguar, and son of sun. Once you reach son of sun status you will receive
an achievement award just like in adventure mode.

Your stats are recorded for each game that you play. The stats include your
points, number of combos, coins, gaps, maximum chains, maximum combos, your
time, your best time, and wether or not you beat the ace time. On the stats
page you will also be given a tip that may or may not help you do better in
the future. You can earn achievement awards for a number of these things
and points for almost all of them. There are twelve achievement awards
total for you to win.

The leaderboard lets you know how you rank amongst the rest of the Zuma
players in the world. In adventure mode HEROESOFGAMING is currently ranked
15986 with a score of 170030 on level number 5:2. RISKBREAK3R is ranked
number one with a score of 3104510 on level number 13:1. On gauntlet mode
HEROESOFGAMING is ranked number 664 and PROX33 is ranked number one.

There is a free demo available for this game, but your scores will not be
saved and you can only play in adventure mode up to level two. Check it out
if you haven’t already; free is good, but the price for the whole game is
great too. Sometimes simple is simply better.