The Gadgets Page

If you like to play puzzle games like Tetris, Bejeweled or Pop-It, then you MUST get Planet Puzzle League. Right now. If you don’t own a Nintendo DS yet, buy yourself one because Planet Puzzle League is the game that you’re going to carry around with you and play when you’re stuck in a line at the DMV or waiting for people to show up. You can play a game quickly or play many games if you have the time.

I already had Puzzle League on a GameBoy Advance game bundled with Dr. Mario. I bought Planet Puzzle League because I thought it would be fun and I wouldn’t have to use that huge GBA game that sticks out of the bottom of my DS. All I was expecting was the same game, but I got a whole lot more.

How To Play: You move bricks around to make groups of 3, 4 or 5. The bigger the groups you make, the better your score. There is gravity in this game, just like Bejeweled, so the bricks will fall when others disappear. Unlike Bejeweled, the screen doesn’t automatically fill. It’s more like Tetris in that respect. A full screen means you’re dead.

Here is a scan of the booklet that came with the game explaining chains (getting more than 5 at a time) and introducing the blocks:

How To Kick Butt: Making chains will create garbage that will show up on your opponents screen. That isn’t important when you’re playing single player, but the killer feature of this game is the multi-player options. Here is a scan of the booklet explaining garbage and the item blocks.

The single player is the same as the original Puzzle League with Garbage Attack being the most fun closely followed by the Vs. Comp game. The biggest difference between the Planet Puzzle League and regular Puzzle League is the ability to play people on Nintendo WFC. You can connect to a wireless network and play this game against people all over the world. Most of them are crazy good, so you’ll get your butt kicked quick if you’re a newbie, but it’s still a lot of fun to play against real people.

Additionally, if you have friends who also have this game, you can exchange friend codes and play against each other one-on-one. The game includes a Voice Chat feature. When you turn it on, you can talk to your friend while you play. I can’t stress how much this affects enjoyment of the game. Sending your friend a huge ton of bricks that will kill them is MUCH more fun when you can hear them scream.

Speaking of sending your friend a huge ton of bricks, there are many items in the game that allow you to positively affect yourself or negatively affect your opponent. I strongly recommend that you read the booklet that comes with the game because knowing how to use these items will drastically affect game play (see the scan of the booklet above).

Most importantly, you can play in Wireless Mode against three friends. They don’t have to buy the game, you can just play with friends as long as they have their own DS handhelds, you can share your game and kick their butts at the same time!

This game plays sideways, so you hold your DS like a book, but I HATE that feature. Fortunately, you can go into the options and choose Horizontal play and it will change your game to play the normal way. You don’t have to use the stylus, you can play this game with the buttons. That’s also easier if you change the format back to Horizontal. One “feature” that I particularly dislike is the music. The music changes when you change your blocks, but you cannot turn it off. This is very annoying when you’re playing online with a friend because the music competes with using Voice Chat, making it harder to hear your friend howl in agony when you send them a mountain of garbage to deal with.

I love this game. It’s the perfect puzzle game for playing alone during down times (like waiting in line). It’s also the perfect party game that you can play against your friends. It’s rare that a game can be both fun alone and with other people, but Planet Puzzle League does it!