Klax

Copyright : Atari Games | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

There isn?t a story behind games like these, Klax is a conversion of an arcade to the home computer. It is very similar to Tetris and other colour matching games that can be found on just about every computer, console and hand held machine since Tetris and Columns were created by Sega/Nintendo.

Different colour blocks fall down towards your paddle at the bottom of the screen and depending on the level you are playing on you either have to match them in a straight line (up or down) or diagonally (top to bottom) in order for them to disappear and make room for the other blocks that are tumbling your way. The main difference being that you are given a set of "klaxes" to get for each level, which along with the speed of the tumbling blocks increases as the game progresses.

That is all you need to know about the background of this game so lets get on with the review.

Graphics

Klax is slightly better than the block dropping games that came before it as Tengen have added a few twists to the game. Your play area is smaller than in any of the Tetris clones, you have a number of matching colour lines to reach (klaxes) before completing the level and you must follow the instructions as laid out before each wave.

Graphics are great in this game, well as great as you can get for a game of this kind, the colours actually look better than the C64 version (something of a rarity) and the game still has an arcade look and feel to it. Tengen have done a great job in converting the graphics accross to a much less powerful machine than the arcade.

Sound

Sound is also great, instead of just giving us a theme to listen to (like in Tetris) Tengen have converted the whole sound system across, including the music that plays before each wave, the "well done" sounds when you get a klax and the dropping of the blocks onto your play area - very well done indeed.

Gameplay

Gameplay is pretty basic as all you need to do is move the paddle from left to right and press your fire button to drop the coloured bricks onto the playing area and try to line them up in a colour. Having said all that the game is just as playable as the arcade and certainly more addictive than most Tetris clones out there so if you?re a fan you will love this conversion to bits.