Luxor 2

This week's game is one that many of you already like. It has a very well known game-play... same old action-puzzle casual stuff.

But nobody cares if the theme is expired, because everybody knows how addictive this game-play is. The rules of the game are easy to learn and in these kinds of cases, the graphics of the game are not bad at all.

In this game, called "Luxor 2", the player is taken into a voyage to the land of the ancient Egypt. And let's face it... This place is one of the most mythic and mysterious places on the planet. And the pyramids, wherever they are, real or made out of pixels, never hurt anybody.

Now... Going back to the gameplay... You have to go through 88 all-new, gorgeously rendered levels of brilliantly displayed crisps and some stunning graphics that take place amongst the pyramids and temples of this ancient land.

To win this game, you'll need the help of your mystical winged scarab to shoot and destroy the approaching magical spheres that have the mission to reach the pyramids at the end of their path. Here you'll need some power-ups and Luxor 2 has them. They are 13, but don't think that 13 is bad luck.

Of course, you have more stages to go through. You have to know that every stage consists of a sumptuous, pseudo-3D backdrop. You have to face chains of colored balls sinuously snaking along its pathways, drawing ever-closer to a gate/pyramid. Beware... If the pyramid is reached, it will cause you to lose one of a limited supply of lives. And of course, if you run out of lives, your progress comes to an abrupt end, so do what comes natural. Time to unveil the surprise: the winged scarab. This one is located at the bottom of the screen and with your mouse, you must blast varying-hued orbs at the onrushing horde.

If you don't know how to do it, here's the "hint": left-clicking shoots, while right-clicking lets you swap out your current ammo for the next - and hopefully more conveniently-colored - randomly-generated ball.

Still, nobody told you the mission. It's pretty easy: you just have to match three or more balls of the same color and that's it. The Spheres will shatter in a spray of colored sparks, boosting your score and potentially dropping power-ups as well.

In the end, you have to clear all the balls from the board to fill a progress-tracking meter and travel further along the map, which looks like the backing for a plastic-miniature-strewn tabletop wargame. The closer you come to the end of the game, the more (and better) power-ups are awarded, plus the greater frequency with which desperately needed ball colors appear.

The only problem with the game is that the game modes Adventure, Practice, Survival - which is endless - and the hidden Challenge of Horus, seem all the same. There are no surprises or a change in the storyline. But that is something that you expect from a game that has this game-play.

You also have the same play mechanics such as ricoche-ing walls, multiple cannons and destructible target-based objectives, but that is the game-play.

These are things that should not bother any player. What Luxor 2 does is to bring exactly what a sequel should and give us: a game-play that can match the rivals from the same genre.

Happy play everybody!