Jewel Quest 3

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on November 03, 2011

Puzzles are one of the most popular genres of games on the Internet, and in particular, puzzles that involve matching jewels, bubbles, or other like objects proliferate. Jewel Quest 3 is yet another variation on this theme. Although we liked the puzzle itself, there were aspects of the game that we found somewhat off-putting.

Users should be aware that downloading Jewel Quest 3 first involves downloading the Free Ride Player, a game manager that will also download several other games without your permission if you're not paying attention. Once Jewel Quest 3 is launched, it's surrounded by advertising, which we found both distracting and detrimental to the game's performance. We also had to watch a commercial before starting the game, and periodically gameplay was interrupted by more advertising. All that aside, the game is fun, but it's not anything we haven't seen before. It's couched in a narrative about a mysterious game board with a secret compartment full of poisonous, blinding spores, but the game is really just about switching the positions of jewels around on a grid to match three in a row and clear them from the board. Each level of Jewel Quest 3 brings new obstacles--users must match three coins to unlock a locked space on the board, for example--and the game gets challenging pretty quickly. There are in-game instructions for each level, though they're written in such tiny font that we found them hard to read. Overall, Jewel Quest 3 is fun, but it's also a lot of hassle for a game that can be found in many similar formats elsewhere.

Jewel Quest 3 installs a desktop icon without asking but uninstalls cleanly.

Publisher's Description

From Free Ride Games:

In Jewel Quest 3, the third installment in the highly popular Match Three game, Rupert and Emma have settled down and opened a museum to display the many artifacts they have collected over the years. The game begins with a tragic accident. While playing with a mysterious jewel board, Rupert and Emma's daughter Natalie pops open a secret compartment that releases spores into the air, causing her vision to fade. The distraught parents immediately set out to save their daughter's sight and embark on a worldwide search for a mythical Golden Jewel Board, rumored to hold the antidote that will cure her. As the game unfolds, Rupert and Emma find themselves guided by cryptic clues left by a shady stranger, calling on them to face a host of challenges and obstacles in order to find the cure before time runs out.

That's where you come in. Match colorful jewels into groups of three or more to clear them from the board and turn the tiles below gold. Follow the clues and face new challenges in 200 levels of perplexing puzzles. The more clues you decipher, the closer Rupert and Emma will be to finding the cure for Natalie. How does Jewel Quest 3 end? Who is the mysterious stranger that claims to hold the precious cure? Download Jewel Quest 3 now for FREE and enjoy: * 200 levels in unique 11 regions * 30 different jewels * 40 unique tournament boards found nowhere else in the game