Jewel Quest 2

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on August 17, 2011

Matching puzzle games have become fairly ubiquitous, with a lot of themes employed to jazz up what is typically just the task of getting three or more jewels (or whatever) of the same color in a row and clearing them from the board. Jewel Quest 2 plants this popular puzzle format within some kind of seafaring adventure motif. We're not entirely clear what it is--the game's font is too small to be legible--but the puzzle itself remains the same addictive time-waster it always has been.

In order to play Jewel Quest 2, users must first download the Free Ride Player and then download the game. The player will also download three other games without asking permission and will add three icons to your desktop, which didn't exactly thrill us. Be prepared for plenty of advertising as well; first you'll have to watch a video ad before starting your game, and then the game will be surrounded by advertising as you play. The game itself is nice enough to look at, though the interface, even at full screen, was surprisingly small. This rendered all of the text in the game, including the instructions, extremely hard to read; we were able to play the game because we've played these types of puzzle games many times before, but we remain unclear about the details of the adventure story that is supposed to tie the various levels together. Gameplay is challenging; users must turn every square on the board gold by eliminating the jewels upon it, which is no easy task. Overall, we had fun playing Jewel Quest 2, but its strangely small interface and all of the advertising interfered with our enjoyment.

Jewel Quest 2 installs desktop icons without asking but uninstalls cleanly. We recommend this game with reservations.