10000000

I actually wasn't sure if I would bother with this review, on account that most of us with Apple devices already played through this while waiting on hold for tech support. But I figured I'd give the Steam edition a try while waiting for other indie games to come out (and as a truck driver by vocation, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the time and money reviewing Euro Truck SImulator 2).

10,000,000 looks familiar to anyone who's ever played Bejeweled or spent time on the Facebook games market. A grid of blocks, you shift lines to group colors together, the groups disappear, you score something. The One Neat Idea is a little dungeon adventurer that runs over the top of the grid. When he hits an enemy, you match swords or staves to kill it. When he hits a door or chest, you match keys to unlock it. Matching the "wrong" thing at the wrong time does nothing but make blocks disappear, and other blocks can be matched to fill your inventory or defenses.

This little puzzle game clone originally picked up a lot of hits for its mobile version. I imagine that mainly because it takes the addiction of other block matchers and adds a hint of tactics. Such as, try to match swords against weaker enemies - save the staves for armored enemies with physical resistance. Don't sit idle when walking from one monster to the next - match shields or treasures during downtime to clear up the grid. When you're stuck needing a certain thing, match ANYTHING to clear the board and drop new blocks. It's just a dash of spicy need-for-attention-span on top of a big plate of mindless french fries.

When I personally cleared the game's main playthrough on my iPod, I immediately stopped playing. Beating the game involves reaching the titular score, but hitting that score only means grinding the game more often. There's an RPG element of building workshops and purchasing upgrades, but the new goods are almost all alike in that they just make the little guy go faster - you run through enemies faster or take fewer penalties from getting hit. The base game never changes, other than how long you can play in one go without being stopped.

Once you've hit the arbitrary scoring goal of the game, the game gives you a little cutscene and calls it good. There's not much reason to go back to the beginning again for the same experience, though the Steam implementation adds achievements for beating the game early. As a $2 game on my iPod, there wasn't much reason to worry about that. The game encourages you to pull it out of your pocket for short bursts of play while making you feel like you're contributing to a longer project. But as a $5 game on my home computer?

Do I really want to play this game sitting at my desk when I've got so many other options at home? Am I really going to match tiles when I could be playing an actual dungeon grinding game (or a shooter or RPG or truck driving simulator)? I dunno about that. Playing 10,000,000 on Steam feels like sitting in a movie theater and pulling out your smartphone to look up a funny YouTube clip. There's better stuff available, but there's also a nation full of people clicking on vegetables in Farmville that probably don't feel cheated for playing tiny computer games all day.

If you don't own a smartphone, if you've only got a few bucks in your pocket, if you've got a dreary February day in your near future where you'd rather sit inside and mash buttons instead of going out in the rain (screw you, Valentine's Day), then 10,000,000's a fine pickup - quick to start up, easy to learn and fool with, and enough depth to distract you at least as long as most $5 games do. Lord knows I only meant to turn the game on again for a moment to get a screenshot, only to realize I was close to a new set of weapon upgrades and spend a half-hour on matches. Stupid arbitrary rewards.