I’d Like To Amend That Statement…

Ready Uppers… I owe you an apology. I’ve made a mistake.

Two months ago I was given a review copy of PopCap Greatest Hits Volume 2, a nifty collection of four of the company’s corking games. I’d experienced three of its titles (Feeding Frenzy 2, Plants vs Zombies and Heavy Weapon) in some shape or form before, but when it came to Zuma, I was a noob. I’d seen adverts for Zuma Blitz pop up on Facebook when indulging myself in Bejewelled but I’d never got as far as clicking on the Aztec frog smiling at me to actually see what it was all about.

So there I was, with my PopCap collection gleaming at me through the TV, armed and ready to give it a go for the sake of our readers. I efficiently knocked down the initial stages of coloured balls for an hour or so, and was left fairly satisfied but not overly gripped by what it had to offer; I believe my review stated that it was ‘by no means dull… probably the least addictive of the four’.

And that is where my mistake crept in.

Before receiving the review I was playing Dragon Age: Origins and for the first time in a long while, I was feeling less than motivated to complete the overly complicated, ‘I wanna be an MMO’ mess that I found it to be. On the top of my stack of yet-to-finish games was Zuma. It was uncomplicated, colourful, and didn’t require five minutes of dialogue skipping just to get back into a fight that I would ultimately lose; it sounded like a plan.

In my Zuma naivety, I assumed I could probably take an evening or two to complete it, and then hand back Dragon Age to finish off Silent Hill Homecoming instead. How wrong could I be…

Don't be fooled, the frog isn't always smiling.

After week one, I’d managed to progress to level 6 and had begun to wonder if there would be no end to how many new coloured balls would be added onto my trail…

By the end of week two, I had managed to claw my way to level 8, and started to feel like a bit of a numpty for not completing what appeared to be a simple game, much more quickly…

Week three and it started to become infuriating. I Googled how many damn levels there were to Zuma and it said 13. I gave up on Dragon Age completely and officially declared war on the Aztec Frog and his coloured balls of doom, unlocking the achievement for 20 hours game play in the process. Oh dear.

During week four, Mark, among others, had begun to notice that my Zuma obsession was getting rather tense and was still unsuccessful. I raged onwards, clawing my way to level 12. I should have packed a tent because it was going to be a long stay.

Week five and I was still on level 12, barely able to scrape past three rounds. The Snooker World Championship started and, unlike other years where I had taken a keen interest, I couldn’t watch for longer than five minutes without wanting to smash the coloured balls through my TV screen with a mallet.

During week six most nights became full of expletives declaring myself nothing less than a raving, effing idiot for not being able to finish the damn thing. The low point came when, in a moment of genius, I plotted to take advantage of the auto-save feature to jump back in to a higher round if it all went sour. After quitting to the menu I accidentally pressed New Game and had to start from scratch… my TV almost had a controller through it, again.

The start of May kicked off week seven and it had been one of non-gaming achievements. I’d worked on filming and editing a short movie for a United Nations project, raised £400 for Cancer Research by taking part in Race for Life and I started to take control of my dog phobia by befriending the new family puppy, Ruby. If it was going to happen, it would be now.

With a bottle of Corona and a bar of Galaxy Cookie Crumble by my side I took it on. I battled through rounds 1-4 with relative confidence; round 5 as ever proved to be the toughie with its double tracked challenge. Round 6 only claimed one of my lives and finally, after weeks of trying, and to my absolute horror and disgust, I finally finished Zuma with a life spare.

The air turned blue. Seven weeks of obsession and hell and within the space of 15 minutes I finished it all.

$*%&^*£ ZUMA!

So here I am, openly asking to amend a statement.

Zuma: It may not appear to be much at first, but if you let it, it will consume you with a fiery gaming love/hate relationship and take over your console for weeks. It will eat away your soul trying, but there won’t be much better than finally having that achievement pop up on your Gamerscore knowing you finally kicked the Aztec Frog in the ass.

Lozzy 1 – Zuma 0


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3 responses to “I’d Like To Amend That Statement…”

  1. Tony avatar
    Tony

    My wife followed a similarly gritty tale of addiction at the hands of this game – and oddly enough for a similar reason, as I had downloaded it in order to write the Ready Up review. ( http://ready-up.net/reviews/zuma-psn/ )
    She stayed up until 3am one weeknight trying to beat a level. It is almost worth it, though, just to read the hilariously bad English on the screens when you beat certain levels, like the one you pictured above…

  2. Kirsten avatar
    Kirsten

    Almost worth it? Almost? It was definitely worth it! I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. The main thing is, I beat it in the end.

  3. Simon avatar
    Simon

    Crikey, I’d almost forgotten it was of me to rescue his star.

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