Traffic Jam mini-review by Shaun McGill

This game follows the classic route for Palm gaming- easy to pick up but very difficult to put down… It’s actually a difficult product to review because there’s only so much you can say about a game where your objective is to push cars and trucks into parking spaces in order to help a yellow Beetle get out of the car park...

It sounds daft but there's something quite enticing about the way the game has been put together. For a start you have some very nice hi-res graphics with highly detailed car and trucks as well as a friendly musical soundtrack to keep you going when the levels start to get tough. The options within the game include sound off (useful at work:)), saving of games (up to 10 can be saved simutaniously), quick help and the refreshing of levels when you get totally stuck.

eSoft have taken an interesting approach to the hi-res+ machines and managed to black out the virtual graffiti area so that you have less distractions on the screen. Personally I would like to see the whole screen used for the game itself but I suspect that would be difficult due to the squareness of the playing field.

The game play is what makes this product so good- it's sort of a mix between a 2D Rubics cube, chess and the classic tile swap games from a few years ago and it's brought back some old feelings to me as I found myself subconciously using Rubics Cube strategys that I though I had long forgot. When you start playing it feels very difficult but you start to remember moves from previous levels and these can really help as you progress- this is where the similarity to chess comes in as knowledge is power especially in this game.

There are 200 levels in the game (yes, 200!) and there is good varience between them as you do not automatically get harder and harder levels as you progress because the occasional simple one is dropped in. I have just reached level 51 and it has taken a lot of work to get that far- the biggest surprise is that often I can't work out how I got through some of the levels but that's a good thing as it will add to the longevity of the game.

Over the past week I have not played any game on my TH55 except Traffic Jam and I determined to reach the magic 200th level- this game is quite brilliant and at $5.95 is great value.

I cannot recommend this game highly enough- it is just about perfect and you MUST give it a try!

Available from eSoft interactive.