Star Wars Puzzle Blaster, a member of THQ Wireless' mobile Star Wars content suite, is a Snood clone that's been reskinned with a Star Wars theme. However, even though some of the game pieces bear traits specific to the character they depict, this middling action-puzzle game actually has very little to do with the movies.
Like Snood and its many imitators, Star Wars Puzzle Blaster is an action-puzzle game where you try to match three or more pieces of the same kind at the top of the screen, clearing them from the board and causing any attached pieces to fall off the clump. You shoot the pieces from a cannon at the bottom of the screen, which you can aim using the directional keys. The graphics are minute in this mobile version of the game, so an aiming cursor thoughtfully assists you with bank shots and other tricky placements. There are a healthy number of basic game pieces to use, such as C3PO, General Grievous, and R2D2, as well as a few special snoods that are endowed with special abilities. For instance, Darth Vader simply eliminates all pieces in his path, and Clone Troopers explode, blowing up all pieces in a certain radius.
This adds a little bit of variety to what is otherwise a very straightforward game. You can play Star Wars Puzzle Blaster in three modes: advanced snood, snood hunter, and multiplayer. Advanced snood is actually a classic game of snood that adds new layers of pieces on every level, while also increasing the rate that the ceiling descends towards your cannon. Snood hunter is basically the same thing, except that the layers of snoods shift randomly from right to left. You can play either of these modes in level mode or puzzle mode, which challenges you to destroy pre-built formations of snoods as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, there are only nine puzzle levels, so puzzle mode doesn't stay interesting for long. We tried to access the multiplayer mode many times over several days, but were never able to play a game, due to "server is busy" error messages.
Star Wars Puzzle Blaster's appearance is average on the Motorola V551. The snoods themselves are very small, but you can still make out the different characters, which make a silly facial expression at odd intervals. A really loud Star Wars theme plays at the beginning of the game, which is otherwise mostly silent.
Don't expect anything revolutionary from Star Wars Puzzle Blaster; it's a competent rehash of a classic casual game, and nothing more. The multiplayer mode might have been something to talk about--if we could have gotten it to work. Die-hard Star Wars fans that have to own everything associated with the license might want to give this a look. Everyone else should probably download one of the many better options on Cingular's deck.
