Puz: MinuteMatch [by Oliver Pearl]

Game Review: MinuteMatch
Release Date: June 10, 2005
Developer: Oliver Pearl
Genre: Casual > Action
System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, 300 MHz, 64 RAM, Direct X 7.0+
Players: 1-4
Price: $19.95
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There’s something adorable about MinuteMatch and it’s not just the bubbly letters on the title screen (whose colors change when you click on them, by the way), it’s not the über-cute characters that you play on and it’s not the happy music playing in the background. What is it that is so appealing about MinuteMatch, you ask? The spacebar.

MinuteMatch is actually a collection of five separate mini-games that are all based around a similar principal, is your mastery of the spacebar enough to grant you the timing precision to grab all the right items and avoid all the bad ones? Can you triumph over three less QWERTY-inclined opponents? Do you have what it takes?

As either a sheep, a spider, a chick, a tadpole or a clamshell, it is your duty to collect and consume happy items and avoid those items that are, well, less joy-inducing. True, as a sheep it is pretty fun to eat one of the bad leaves and watch your sheep do what I can only assume is fart smoke as it leaps across the screen in pursuit of daisies to nosh on. It is even more fun to eat one of the wonderful pink flowers and watch your butt turn into a temporary jet engine, shooting flames and launching you higher than your opponents for those hard to get points.

MinuteMatch is irreverent goodness boiled down to its simplest principles. As a 4-player experience, each gamer gets one button and their one button does one thing. Not since Super Monkey Ball on the Nintendo Gamecube has a game’s essence been so distilled. The assigned key will either make a clamshell clam up to avoid or allow items into its maw, a spider drop down on its web to grab an insect, a sheep leap through the air, a chick try to fly or a tadpole chose a direction to rocket towards. The game is a matter of pure timing in the quest for the collection of more points than the other players, and of course the occasional positive or negative effect item is tossed into the mix for good measure.

Gameplay starts off slowly to let players get warmed up to the experience and then slowly moves towards a more feverish pace. Items for collection tend to blanket the screen, so it’s almost never a matter of battling with your opponents to grab the one item you need. It’s a matter of grabbing as much as you can as quickly as you can. What makes this experience all the more feverish, however, is that your buddies aren’t going to be playing on their own computers across town or in the next room. They’re close enough to you to be using the exact same keyboard.

Party games are a rare bird in general, and even more so on the PC, so it’s refreshing to see MinuteMatch step up to that plate, however, at only 5 mini-games, the experience is a bit thin, polished though it may be. There are two modes of gameplay to liven the experience: first to 100 points wins or most points earned in 100 seconds wins. Players will, more often than not, find themselves sticking to the 100 seconds mode so as not to burn themselves out on the games, as getting to 100 points takes more time than you’d think.

At $19.95, it’s questionable if the longevity of MinuteMatch matches the price, but any way you look at it, the game is good, clean, party-style fun and you and your friends are guaranteed to have some epic conflicts huddled around your keyboard.

Graphics: 8
The graphics are vibrantly colorful in MinuteMatch and that suits the game’s style very well. All the characters are adorable (especially the little chicks) and have a fun, bubbly 3D look to them. Also, even on lackluster systems, the amount of movement and items onscreen at once doesn’t seem to become too much of an issue for the system to handle, which is good since a laggy multiplayer game is really no game at all.

Sound: 8
It’s nice that each mini-game in MinuteMatch has its own music. The same track for each would have gotten repetitive very fast. The music is fun and super cutesy, which could get old for some users, but not the ones that are playing this kind of game. Some of the sound effects are so cute that you’ll do bad things to hear them, like the sound the little chick makes when he sneezes after eating a whole thing of pepper.

Gameplay: 9
The gameplay in MinuteMatch is simplicity itself. Hit the spacebar, or whatever your assigned button is, and your character will do one thing and one thing only. There’s no chance of getting confused or messing up a move at a critical moment. It’s just one button. This makes it imminently playable by anyone and everyone… but also makes it a bit of a one-trick pony. Players have 5 games and 2 playing styles, giving them 10 gameplay options for the game, though playing through all 10 of these modes will take no more than about 20 minutes.

Value: 6
MinuteMatch is a well-made, good-looking and fun party game for the PC. However, at $19.95, there’s not a whole lot to this gaming experience. If you plan on playing with your buddies, make it cheaper by going in as a group and you will be guaranteed some good times, but going in solo, when your only competition will be the barely competent AI, the price tag is a little steep for the gameplay benefits reaped in return.

Concept: 8
MinuteMatch has a wonderful concept. The idea of getting gamers together in one room to interact with one another in a fun and cheerful game environment is to be lauded. There’s just nothing not to like about this idea. The mini-games themselves are variations on simple arcade standards, and they’re all done competently, but what really makes this game shine is the way they’re all rolled into a single package.

Fun: 8
MinuteMatch is a lot of fun for as long as it stays fresh. The characters are cute, the items fly across the screen in a flurry and it’s easy to get caught up in the gaming experience when you don’t have to worry about exactly how to make your character do anything fancy. Plus, any game that I can get my fiancé to sit down and play with me has got to be a winner. It’s cute and it’s playable by everyone.

Overall: 8
It would be great to see just a few more games for MinuteMatch to round out the experience. Perhaps a richer game experience for the single player gamer would have been nice to add value to the game. These things are icing on a cake, however, the bottom line is that MinuteMatch is a blast!

Added: September 24th 2005
Reviewer: Michael Scarpelli
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