Strat-O-Gems Deluxe - Atari 2600

Strat-o-Gems Deluxe is a (ahem) gem in the VCS collection. You can never have too many great puzzlers in a video game library and having one as good as this one is icing on the cake. The game plays perfectly and unlike a lot of similar games, the difficulty wastes no time smacking you in the face. This keeps the game challenging and engaging and guarantees lots of replay value. Oh the hours I have spent playing %u201Cjust one more%u201D game. If puzzle games aren%u2019t your thing, then this one isn%u2019t for you, otherwise, this is a %u201Cmust-have%u201D game in any VCS collection.

I love puzzle games. This is maybe the best match game I've ever played. I can't believe it is on the 2600. The graphics are fantastic, the controls are nice, tight and fluid and the sound is fantastic. The Vox support is great too! I highly adding this game to your collection. Very addicting and very fun!

This game is the Atari equivalent of a bag of Lay's ("Bet you can't play it just once!").

When playing it, you just can't help but sense that a great deal of work and creativity went into this. This game just feels so... complete.

I might've liked a bit more sound, or maybe some light background music, but whatever. The graphics and gameplay more than make up for it. Besides, when you set off a combo that results in a sizeable chain reaction, the game interrupts itself to commend you! How cool is that? Highly recommended.

Strat-O-Dems Deluxe is eye-numbing fun with gameplay so riveting you\'ll forget to blink. It\'s a welcome change from the action style games that are so pervasive in the Atari 2600 world. It will test your reflexes, but the primary challenge is the strategy.The control scheme is intuitive and extremely responsive. Expect to spend some time digesting the manual if you want to thoroughly understand the variety of scoring options.Excellent work, Mr. Payson: a new classic for an old classic. Yeah, so what if it kicks my butt in just the first few levels? This game should be in everyone\'s collection."

A great, colorful puzzle game requiring strategy and fast reflexes, Strat-O-Gems Deluxe is a welcomed addition the 2600 library. The game starts you out slowly, but this allows you to build up potential chain-reactions of gems which are the key to scoring big points. The manual, although a bit wordy, is full of useful tips on how to get the most out of your game. As you get to higher levels, the pace picks up and you\'ll have less time to strategize, and barely enough time to survive. Nice touches like bomber and wild-card gems give you even more opportunities for strategy and scoring. The sounds and graphics are all first-rate, with some cool visual effects. The gems change shape each level, which not only adds visually to the game, but keeps you on your toes as you have to adjust to each new shape. When you score a particularly impressive combination, the game stops to congratulate you, but I found this to be disruptive to the flow of the game. Fortunately, you can turn that option off using the right difficulty switch.