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Mr. Driller (Game Boy Color)

Reviewed by: nalod6 Has Written 13 Reviews
Reviewed on: 4-Jan-2005

Description

Combine Tetris and Boulder Dash and what do you get? Mr. Driller!

Mr. Driller is an interesting puzzle game where the main objective is to dig through differing shapes and color blocks to reach the bottom of a mineshaft. Sounds pretty easy right? Well, you have a limited amount of time (air) and the possibility of being crushed to deal as your primary obstacles.

Mr. Driller starts out easy enough, and is easy to learn. Drill your way through various blocks. As the blocks from above fall down, combo's of 4 or more matching blocks also disappear and make way for more blocks from above. In the meantime, you have to deal with being crushed by those falling blocks while continually working your way down the screen.

Obstacles are limited, and include only super blocks, which take 5 good drills (and 20 out of 100 of your air supply) to eliminate. To regain lost air, you can pick up air capsules, worth 100 points each for the first, and 100 points more than the last one was worth. As you delve further down, your air supply decreases even quicker, so picking up more capsules is a necessity. The trouble is, as you get further down in the cavern, air capsules are more and more difficult to obtain without being crushed. You have to find interesting ways to eliminate surrounding blocks via chain reactions without being smushed by falling blocks.

The gameplay is easy to learn, and difficult to master. Even skilled players will run out of air or be crushed every once in a while. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of modes in this game. The modes consist of varying depths of caverns you must dig through (from 500 to the larger 2500 for example), and an endless mode (dig til' you die). Even though this is a great game, the lack of variety can make this game pretty mundane.

As for graphics and sound, both are pretty good for the GBC, with bright and colorful graphics and upbeat music and sound effects.

Overall, puzzle fans will have fun with this title, but after a while even the most die-hard puzzlers will want to find something else. I recommend this game, or even better, the DS game Mr. Driller Drill Spirits, which, while not making very good use of DS capabilities, offers a much larger variety of modes and gameplay.