Puzzle Quest Galactrix

by Aspyr

Product Features

• Collect a fleet of customizable spaceships, which endow your player with new skills and abilities
• Fight in over 150 battles within story mode
• Battle across the galaxy in multiplayer battles and compete for rankings in online leaderboards
• Short easy pick-up and play battles, with incredible depth and RPG-style character building
• More control of the puzzle board as you manipulate the puzzle gems in zero gravity. Control the direction the gems refresh

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001RBSOMW
• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: February 17, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,651 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC

In the distant future, mankind has spread across the galaxy into hundreds of solar systems with the aid of inter-dimensional travel. Four powerful mega-corporations that control all the technology have overtaken all forms of governments. Now, in-fighting between the corporations has led to a horrifying experiment gone wrong-the accident has caused another race to attempt extermination of humankind. Play as a rogue pilot and gain skills, craft items and maneuver among political factions as you attempt to end the genocide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but gameplay becomes repetitive over time, February 27, 2009

By 

Mark Witt (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Quest Galactrix (CD-ROM)

First, i'll say i'm a huge fan of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords(COW)(for PC and DS). While this game is plenty different and slightly addicting, it doesn't have the same quality of gameplay.

Differences:
The major difference for Galactrix is hexagons, instead of linear up & across gems in COW. You can match gems in many different ways, which can be slightly confusing at first, but it's easy enough. Instead of castles in COW, you have galaxies and planets in this one. The map is huge and would take a HUGE amount of time to complete all the missions.

Upgrades:
The only way to progress through the game as COW players know, is to get upgrades for everything (skill points and special gem abilities). Compared to COW for gameplay battle, upgrades don't feel as useful or straight forward. What I mean is, there are very few 'attack' abilities as compared to a huge number of shield and gem powerups. Your abilities are also limited by the size of the ship you have (I didn't figure this out for a while). For example, you can't use 2 laser beams if you have a small ship.

Gameplay:
As a result of what i've mentioned, gameplay can be a bit sluggish, although it's addicting because you want to see what kind of upgrades you can obtain next. That said, leveling up in this game appears to be MUCH slower than for COW. It's easy to get stuck if you're in the "red zone", and this can get very frustrating. Imagine getting waylaid by an enemy ship and not being able to beat them, then getting sent back to another galaxy where you get waylaid there too, if beaten there again, you get sent back to the planet you were just beaten(like a loop). Sorry if that was confusing! One last thing i'll mention is travel. This gets very old and repetative. You have to Hack into galaxies to go to a new one. For this you have a limited amount of time for matching a sequence of gems. Imagine doing this for EVERY 50 + galaxies that are in the game.

This review has been pretty negative, and the game frustrates me, yet I continue playing to see how I can upgrade my ship, skills, and abilities. For that, it's a decent, playable sequel of Challenge of the Warlords, but I like COW much better.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Atrociously Bad, May 17, 2009

By 

David Fitzpatrick "biofuels scientist/researcher" (Lincoln NE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Quest Galactrix (CD-ROM)

I wanted to like this- I really did. Graphics are beautiful, the sci-fi concept is fun, and I was all set for Challenge of the Warlords 2: 5,000 Years Ahead. Instead, actual play reveals a frustrating game of far too much random chance, pointless timewasting, arcane rules and conditions, and a plot that would have looked pretty good for an Atari 2600 game. I can't seriously believe this ever saw playtesting of any kind.

Assuming Aspyr wants to fix it, what they'll need to do, in order:
-The "hacking leapgates" mini-game needs to go back to whatever Stygian hell it came out of. If it can't just be removed, ED24 needs better options for dealing with it. Experience points for the crew would help here- maybe every time ED hacks a gate, he gets a bit better at it and can eventually buy abilities like Time Stop or Destroy All *whatever* Gem.
-Similar considerations apply for Mine, Create, and even Haggle. What, you'll do something a hundred times and get no better?
-Combat is constantly pointless and unavoidable. Why is a pirate ship half my size determined to attack me? Could it be that the designer just wants to waste game time to make up for a lack of story? The other possibility is that the pirates are religious fanatics who want to die in hopes of being reincarnated in better video games. I'd say their chances are pretty good.
-The plot is overly contrived. This was really kind of sad- plots are vital to games and don't have any set game loadout cost- their value is not measured in megabytes on CD. Maybe more detail on just why all these people trust you with their lives, or why you can get blown up and come right back, or why random alien ships are automatically hostile- that these things were convenient to a designer does not make them justified.
-There is no real game economy. Credits buy you things, but you can't just buy better equipment, plans, or information. After a while, they're meaningless. Even buying better ships is barely a justification for having to apparently pick most of your plans and equipment up from an expanding cloud of plasma and pirate ship pieces. Shouldn't friendly systems be willing to sell you things? They don't even have to have a pretty picture for the gizmo- a name and some basic attributes would be fine, just like most items in CoW. This would also get you past rough patches- you could grind for cash until you could buy an anti-pirate cannon or something.

In sum, this is terrible. I generally expect and get better game play and plotting from free Flash. Don't spend anything until some kind of patch comes out, if then.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Like the original Puzzle Quest...except without all the fun and enjoyment getting in the way., April 4, 2009

By 

John (Virginia USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Quest Galactrix (CD-ROM)

I enjoyed the original Puzzle Quest so much so that I bought it for several platforms. I was really looking forward to a space-themed version of the game. I am extremely disappointed in Puzzle Quest Galactrix.
The game starts out fun at first but you soon realize that all the charm and fun of the original have been sucked out and replaced with needlessly monotonous and empty gameplay
Having to hack every stargate is cheap, repetitive and boring. Also the balancing of the game needs major adjustment. I've never seen so many miraculous comebacks from an AI opponent in my life! Could the programmers make it less obvious the AI knows what pieces will show up next on the board? As someone mentioned above, having to use PSI points to avoid battles, again, seems cheap. Also has mentioned above there is very little reward for getting chains or defeating puzzles/ships. You might get a few points of cargo but nothing really satisfying.
I figured the Xbox 360 Arcade version of this game would be a "no-brainer" purchase. Needless to say, I will not be picking Puzzle Quest Galactrix up for any other platform.
I'm glad I only spent $10 on this from Amazon. I would be angry if I had spent a full $20 on this waste.
Avoid this game, unless of course you enjoy pulling your own hair out.

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