In Adventure Xpress, a new iOS game from Adult Swim (reviewed on iPad here), choose from a selection of male and female couriers and deliver mail in a medieval world. But don’t think this job is easy, as you’ll have to battle trolls, skeletons, bandits, yetis, and other baddies as you make your deliveries.  Fight the bad guys in a match three puzzle game similar to Puzzle & Dragons, Monster Match, and many other games of this ilk.

In each stage you’ll have to battle three or more bad guys in succession. Match colors of three to make the stones on the bottom disappear and cause you to attack.  Try to make chain reactions for more hits, and when you match up four or more in a row, you’ll get a special block that’ll clear out rows or columns when you match it up.  One unique aspect is that you can make moves without having to make a match, in case you want to set up a better strategy.  Just keep in mind that the bad guys will attack you after every turn.

Certain enemies are weak against elements and strong to others. Every color you match represents an element, so if you are fighting an earth enemy, try to match up as many fire red stones as you can.  Also, when you match enough of one color, you’ll charge up a meter that’ll let you use a spell at any time to zap enemies hit points.

Winning battles earns you experience points and gold. When you gain enough experience you can level up and buy and equip new weapons and armor with the gold you’ve collected.  You can also buy spells and level them up as well with gold.  Sometimes you can earn stamps, which is a special currency that lets you buy items and spells that you’re not levelled up enough to get yet.  But use these stamps sparingly, as they are harder to come by (you can by more with real money in the in-game store, though).

There are TONS of levels, and you can play for a long time without feeling like you need to buy upgrades or anything. Still, you do have to deal with ads and in-game purchases.  And if you die, you only have so many potions that you can use to keep you in the game, and when they’re out, you’ll have to wait for a certain amount of time for them to refill.  But even though this game is just like others of its ilk, if you enjoy titles like Puzzle Quest, you may enjoy this cartoony puzzler, too.  It is certainly one of the better titles in the genre out there.

Kid Factor:

Even though it says Adult Swim Games on it, doesn’t mean that Adventure Xpress is for adults only. The violence is only cartoony, and if there is any blood, it’s a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing.  I didn’t see any blood, anyway.  The cartoony humor is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I’d be OK with most kids playing this anyway.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, younger gamers may get frustrated at the later levels, and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews