Oi heinz sort out the mad dr (Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine
Date:	24/09/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Addictive, long lasting, fun

Disadvantages: Too difficult, the star isnt in the game

With the success of the original Sonic game Sega used the Sonic brand to launch a new rival to Tetris the Nintendo puzzle powerhouse. With the semi-success of the terribly boring Columns game Sega tried to give the puzzle genre another shot. Although puzzle games of this sort have pretty much gone unchanged in around 20 years, the connect the similar blocks/crystals/gems or in this case beans have always found themselves as addictive, simple and thoroughly time consuming. The "one more go" quality of them strike both the old and new.

So what did Mean Bean Machine bring to the party other than the Robotnik name and the Sonic cartoon characters (from an early 90s cartoon)? Well it was one of the first to truly bring in "competitive tactics", it was more complex than the simple linear variations of its contemporaries and it featured a single player "story mode" with passwords used to take you to where you were (the game was released long before battery back up was introduced as a save format).

So what was it if it was so different?
The game featured a split screen they with the player (in single player) competing against the computer to out last them in a game which sees players connecting same coloured beans to get rid of them. The player must link 4 (or more) beans of the same colour to have them taken from their screen, as the beans fall from the top of the screen and the player needs to position them.
Of course the best tactic was to pet up long chains of connections that took out most of your beans. When a long chain is completed the opponent get waste beans rewarding the player who made the long complex and sometimes risky chain. Unlike Columns which was 3 or more of the same colour in a single line, or Tetris which was an unbroken line horizontally, Mean Bean Machine was just 4 adjacent beans so you had more options, and the beans came down in 2 that could be placed horizontal or vertically. Whilst Columns was blocks of 3 just vertically and Tetris came down in 2 variety of 6 shapes each with 4 blocks.

The games story sees the mad Dr himself trying to turn beans into his minions and put then into his machine. So the player needs to complete the level (by out lasting the computer on each level) to progress to the next, before a final face off with the Robotnik. With each level the person is given a password to return to the level in the future. Each level gets progressively harder as the computer gets better and the beans fall quicker making long combinations much more difficult. In fact the game gets almost impossible later on, even on easy.

On multi-player its a straight head to head of fast paced gameplay which is actually really fun in short bursts though it's hard to keep playing as usually one person is significantly better than the other and as a result the matches can be come rather one sided, it's a lot more skill than luck.

Overall the game is fun and addictive but isn't quite a match for Tetris. As a single player puzzle game it might have you for a few hours over a few sittings, as a multi-player game its a fun one to play occasionally. The competitive edge to the game of "my actions effect you" was brilliantly done and does separate it from the others of the time, a concept that was later copied by things like Bust-A-Move games on the PS1 some years later.

Though they idea had been done in Japan for years previous, this was the first game to be played in such a way in the west and although it was perhaps a bit too difficult, it still managed to have a greatly pleasing ability to keep you coming back for more. Funnily it was one of the very few "Sonic" universe games not to feature the little blue god himself.

Summary: Dr Robotnik tries to muscle in on the baked bean market