"Egg Mania is Eggtastic!"

Egg Mania appears to be a over-looked game, it's price tag was over a year old and it was very cheap! I can't imagine why! The box looks really neat with the little eggmen and it is extremely intense much like the old 2 player action puzzle games.

The object of this game is like a mix between Kirby's Avalanche and Tetris. These kinda Tetris shaped blocks float down in little bubbles and your egg character must catch them and place them to build a tower. You want the Egg-man to get up to the balloons and float away to win. You have a Wobble meter that you must watch so that your tower does not start to crumble. It is important to build your tower solid so that the rising water does not get into airspaces and start to sink it.

The control is fairly easy to latch onto, but sometimes in the heat of the battle a wrong button can easily be pressed and ruin everything you've worked towards. There are way too many things to worry about in this game besides pressing a wrong button.

The AI is rather difficult in the medium/hard modes so far but the two player action is marvelous. Special bubbles also float down containing items like bombs, lightning, spatulas, hammers, and boots. You can throw the bombs over on the other players tower to slow their progress, and they can throw them back if they have not yet exploded. The spatulas fill in spaces you might have missed and the boots make you run and jump higher. When you get a lightning bubble, it sends a storm cloud over to the other player that will try to shock them and knock them down into the water. I still haven't exactly figured out the hammers besides knocking the other player off their tower and down to the water. There are monsters and obstacles that knock you into the water and steal the bubble you are holding that come on their own and make things hard on you.

''Over Easy'' is eggsactly that, it's misleading and a bad way to be introduced into the game. It is in no way preparation for the real thing. ''Hard Boiled'' is where the action is, it's so easy to get involved and keep playing. Rounds seem to last longer and get more intense as you go, like when you get really good at a fighting game.

There are many challenging modes of play... The bomb mode is very fun, all the bubbles contain bombs. Your tower is already built and the object is to destroy destroy destroy while defending your own tower. Besides the actual game mode, there is also a solo, survivor, and tourney mode besides the actual game mode which are pretty self explanatory.

The graphics and sound are eggy too. The characters are cute and the soundtracks are always fitting with the particular background/stage you are in. The monsters change with the stage to be more fitting as well. i.e. in the haunted castle stage a ghost comes to steal your items but in a different one a spider might come down to take it.

Overall I say if you like heated puzzle/action games like Avalanche or Tetris, this game is a must-have. It's eggtastic!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/23/04