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Review by Gary Hartley
September 28, 2008
I’ll be honest; I had it all planned out in my head before the cart was even in the DS. We all already know what Mahjong is, so I’d joke about having to meet a word quota, throw in an obligatory and basic description on how the ancient Chinese tile-matching game worked then be all flippant while I padded the rest of the review out. Mah Jong Quest: Expeditions foils my plan by not being just another tile flipper aided by stylus prodding.
I hate them for it. The time saved by half-arseing this review was to be my first day off the site in months.
Expeditions throws a few things in I didn’t expect. One of them being a plot played out in Manga form that details the unfortunate situation protagonist, Kwazi, falls into. Here, our pun-themed hero is struck by lightning, splitting him into two distinct (and differently sexed) personalities. More than just a random tale to tell throughout the game, it will be this duality that will drive this unique take of Solitaire Mahjong: hidden beneath the pile of tiles lie white and black play pieces that represent each of Kwazi’s halves. To beat the stage, you need to uncover these special tiles from the very bottom of the pile removing matching pairs from the table. Unlike every other game of this ilk you’ve ever played, the game isn’t completed by clearing the pile of tiles -- in fact, you’ll lose prospective points for every pair you remove. The only aim is to pluck the black and white pieces free. Anything left on the board only serves to bloat your bonus.
You can also rack up more points by beating the time limit by a decent margin, but that's not delivering on my promises of unique. So, instead, we’ll talk about the bamboo walls hidden beneath the pile of tiles you need to blow up with firecrackers, or the ice tiles you need to melt by chipping away at their perimeters. Balloon tiles fly away serenely if not weighted down and magnetic tiles switch places with their opposites from across the screen. Typhoon tiles decimate the matching pieces of your choosing; bounce tiles will bounce a little red ball on hidden tiles you’re trying to discover while the magic wand will alter a tile’s suit and number to fit in better with your plans.
You’ll need to re-bind Kwazi’s two halves 64 times before you see off the story mode, but, even then, there’s more Mahjonging to be had. Expeditions boasts an obligatory puzzle section where you can pluck tiles without the chicanery of amoeba-inspired hijinks. There’s even a Classic mode for all you traditionalists yearning for a simpler time when Mahjong was a battle between one man’s plotting and the gods. For what it is, Expeditions has a staggering amount of content and the welcoming foresight to mix up a stagnant genre.
Let’s do a quick test: type Mahjong into the search bar. It’s on the top-left corner. Ignore this game’s habit of breaking it into two words, it’s just the one. Don’t wait to see what I’m going to do next -- go do it.
See the staggering number of results? Not a single one of them is anything like Mah Jong Quest: Expeditions. It stands alone in a very niche genre, doing more than enough to distinguish itself among the throngs.
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Most recent video game reviews written by Gary Hartley
Medal of Honor: Airborne (Xbox 360) [January 31, 2012]
GET TO THA CHOPPA TWOOO!!2 (Xbox 360) [November 29, 2011]
Tropico 4 (Xbox 360) [November 06, 2011]
Fire Mustang (Genesis) [August 20, 2011]
L.A. Noire (PlayStation 3) [August 13, 2011]
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