A new twist to the familiar tetris mold surely to delight column fans.
The sound-effects are very nicely done, from the lighting zaps, to the ghosties 'woo's' and the cute little voices the characters make. It fits the game very well. The music is very cute and well done and there are only a few instances where it's repetition gets irritating. This is mostly the menu screens and the credits. Each stage follows a certain theme, so you'll have nice backgrounds to look at, the blocks will look different and unique background music. As an example, the fourth stage has a Halloween haunted castle feel. The dark, stone castle looms in the background while you place matching stones. Bats fly around and a ghost will come from time-to-time to steal blocks from your very hands. There's an outer space level that has a tentacle to knock you off your tower as you try to reach the flying saucer waiting for you at the top. All this makes the game quite beautiful and adds nice variety to the game, so you aren't faced with the same screen, same blocks, and same music over-and-over. You also have eight cute characters to choose from, each unique and different in ways other than the colour of their shell. The animations are fluid, the environments detailed, and the vivid cartoon quality is done without making the game nauseatingly cute. The controls are fluid and the gameplay quick. And while it seems intimidating and complicated, it's very easy to get the hang of. After a few practice games, you'll be ready to jump into one of several modes of play. Most column games would lose their luster quickly if they didn't have various styles of play and this one offers plenty. The main mode begins with two selections. Over easy has you play against 8 other characters in a fairly easy game, but it's a great mode to start with and build your skills and confidence. Hard Boiled has you going up against 8 characters again, but on the difficulty you select. There are several extra modes to offer variety to the standard game. Survival mode can be played at varying difficulties. This is played like the main mode, only there's a rising water line. If the water hits an unfinished row, that row will be destroyed. If your tower sinks below the water level, you lose. It's great fun to play and at the right difficulty will help develop skills of quick block placement. Pretty standard among the column games. Solo mode has you playing for points. You get points for placing blocks and more points for combos and finishing multiple rows a once or in succession. This really changes the way you play the game. Rather than make it to the top as fast as you can, now you've got to do it in a manner to maximize your points. It's not as easy at all and playing the way you have before won't net you any big amounts. Time Trial tests how quickly you can build a tower and can be quite the challenge.The blocks dropped aren't so convenient as before, so you might find yourself dumping a lot of them. It can be aggrivating at times. Bomb mode operates just like the main mode, putting you against other opponents, however, your tower is already built and only bombs are dropped. It's a frantic bomb chucking fest to take out your opponent tower before he blows up yours. This is the best of the extra modes and quite addictive. It puts the focus more on the action. Like most of the other modes, you have varying difficulties to choose from. There's a built-in help screen and tutorial to get you playing from the start so there's no need to read that paper thing that comes in the box.
For completionists, there are unlockable levels and characters available to those with the skills to achieve them. This will further feed the addiction for awhile and give your skills a serious run.
Overall, Egg Mania is a great fun puzzler that's well designed, easy to learn, with enough modes of play to sate your desires. Highly recommended for column game addicts looking for something a little different than the usual.