Luxor Evolved Review

Score: 3/5
Developed By: MumboJumbo
Available on: PC

If you've ever played any of the Luxor games, with Luxor Evolved you're pretty much getting what you expect. Essentially Bejeweled on crack, the Luxor series gives you lines of coloured marbles scrolling across the screen. When you make a matching set of three they disappear; the aim is to destroy them all before they get into the pyramid at the end of the track. Power-ups and bonuses are collected by building up combos which add a layer of depth to the fairly basic premise.

Dropping the previous Egyptian themes, this reimagining of the series gives off a very Tron: Legacy vibe; the colours, aesthetics, and music all seem heavily influenced by the 2010 movie. Although the electronic music here falls short of Daft Punk's heights, the synaesthetic blast of sight and sound is comparable. The explosive effects and flashing neon lights, however, can be a bit much to bear at times. I found my eyes hurting at one point after playing for a tad too long which was disheartening. Visually, sometimes the levels are a little too spazztastic to easily see what's going on, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Compared to the earlier games, Luxor Evolved has a tonne more powerups and unlocks. There are the return of powerups like the fireball and lightning attack, plus the addition of a few new ones too. One of the new inclusions is the freeze bomb, which basically does as described. It freezes a bunch of marbles, leaving you to smash through them to clear some space; It's a handy pick-up in a pinch. Another new ability, gained by collecting small coloured pieces, turns you into an all powerful, bat-like spaceship. As you only spend short moments as the bat-ship, you'll grow to cherish it. Nothing beats getting the bat powerup just as you're about to fail a stage; it's great fun using lasers to obliterate half the screen of marbles.

Luxor Evolved also brings into play a couple of nifty novelties not seen in the previous games. One of the small but notable features is the exuberant use of a slow motion sequence; time slows down more often than a fight scene made by Zack Snyder. Like in Watchmen, this feature is pretty awesome. However if it's overused, then suddenly you're dealing with Sucker Punch territory. Thankfully, it never gets quite as bad as Sucker Punch, but it does still feel a bit heavy handed.

The variety of levels keep things interesting. Survival, bonus, secret, and boss stages are interspersed throughout the classic levels, arranging a total of 65 levels. While this gives the game a fair amount of length, the previous Luxor games have had up to 100 levels, leaving a little to be desired here. On normal difficulty, the game can be finished in around 3 hours. Luckily there are two extra levels of difficulty to keep you going if you're on the masochistic side.

MumboJumbo has taken the Luxor series in a new flashy, seizure-ridden direction. This is great for the most part, but it lacks some finesse. Amongst the banging music tracks, the blinding Tron-like visuals, and the indulgent use of slow-motion, playing for too long should be entirely avoided. The dazzling firework show gets a bit tiresome, physically and visually. However, the game is still very easy to pick up and play, easily curbing those assignment procrastination itches. So why not roll into some marble madness?