The Bomb: Shockwave's Collapse II

By Jonathan Berohn

The original Collapse was one of Shockwave's first hit games. It's successor, Collapse II, improves on the game's performance and interface without sacrificing any of the pulse-pounding excitement that made the original Collapse such a success.

The premise behind collapse is simple enough. It's kind of like Tetris in reverse. Colored blocks fill up the screen. It's your job to blow up groups of 3 or more of the same color to keep the stack of blocks from hitting the top of the screen. It starts off slow, but soon you'll be clicking like a madman trying keep ahead of the steady onrush of blocks.

What separates collapse from the standard mindless click-as-fast-as-you-can game, is an ingenious element of strategy. Simply put, you score more points-significantly more points-for blowing up bigger groups of blocks. What this means in game terms is that while you are madly clicking away you are also trying to manipulate the blocks into large groups of a single color to score the big bonuses. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how much stress you like in your gaming, this approach usually means that you want to let the blocks come dangerously close to the top of the screen to maximize your score.

You can play collapse in a number of different ways. There is a free online version available here.

This version requires you to sit through a commercial or two before you can play, and it only has the first 9 levels, but it's a great way to see if you like the game. If you get hooked, you can buy a downloadable version for $19.95 and a Super Collapse II for $24.95. You can test each of these downloads before you buy, and I would certainly recommend that. In Super Collapse you get 3 additional versions of the game: one where the screen fills from both top and bottom, and 2 untimed puzzle/strategy versions. Personally, I'd stick with the traditional version. The untimed versions lack the urgency that keeps things interesting, while the top and bottom assault really limits the strategies that make up the essence of Collapse.