In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Shangri La 2

Word games are a dime a dozen, but most of them follow the exact same formula, which means that in the end, after we review them, we usually come away with the same impression – a yawn for the most part. When we started playing Shangri La 2, however, after only a level we knew we were in for something different, and a word game that easily rises above the mediocrity the genre is most known for. Shangri La 2 actually makes making words fun!

The first change Shangri La 2 has going for it is that it isn’t so much about time and knowing a giant vocabulary to make really long words, but rather simply knowing words both small, medium, and large. Each level plays like a puzzle, featuring hexagonal tiles placed in random and stacked positions on a board. In order to complete each level you’ve got to find the hidden gold star tiles and reveal them, eliminating every tile that surrounds it or in other words is attached to it. Once you unveil every gold star you then move on to the next level.

The main mode of the game is a story mode of sorts, which has you traversing the land in order to find the city of Shangri La. In order for you to find Shangri La, however, you need a few trinkets and to work your way there in the first place, with each step of your adventure being represented by a single level you have to complete. Each level plays the same with you needing to find the gold stars before you can complete the level, but every handful of levels, when you are trying to find the trinket to help you get to Shangri La, you’ll have to uncover the gold star under a certain amount of time; given this slight change, however, the levels basically play the same from beginning to end, though the puzzles will have more hurdles and more gold stars you’ll have to uncover as you progress, making your adventure gradually harder and harder.

One particularly nice thing about Shangri La 2 is that it relies more on the puzzle mechanics than the usual word game mechanics, as there is no time limit or really a score you’ll need to overcome in order to move on, which you can only accomplish by having a vast knowledge of the English language. Instead of those time or point mechanics, the difficulty in Shangri La 2 comes from properly using your letters to make words and not leaving yourself with a bunch of Os and Us that you can’t use to make anything. The game thankfully has some powerups you can gather to help you out, such as one powerup that lets you activate it and flip all the tiles around so not every single one will be in the same position it once was, hopefully opening up a spelling chance that once wasn’t there earlier before the switch tile was activated.

Besides the story mode there is also an arcade mode, which plays just like the regular story mode, but this time there is a time limit, and the ultimate goal is to advance through as many levels as possible before time runs out, gathering points to eventually give you your high score. The arcade mode is actually pretty fun despite the fact that it falls back on mechanics from other word games, mostly because of the puzzle mechanics.

Unlike some word games where everything is pretty basic, Shangri La 2 is actually quite lovely, featuring tiles that have a bit of depth to them, and the level backgrounds are vibrant and everything really pops and is overall very clean. The game also has some pleasing audio, ranging from the light background music to the musical tones that you produce by forming words. It’s nice to see a word game stretch beyond the norms of the genre.

If you’re a word game fan you should love Shangri La 2, as it’s one of the best of the bunch in terms of gameplay and presentation. Beyond the word game fans who would probably already be hooked anyways, even non-word game fans should find themselves enjoying this game thanks to the new mechanics and sweet presentation that makes Shangri La 2 anything but your standard word game.

Rating:
Our Scoring System

Download The Demo Or Buy The Game At Playfirst