Chime Super Deluxe Preview

Chime Super Deluxe Preview

Publisher: Zoe Mode
Platform: PlayStation 3 exclusive
Release Date: TBA 2011

Chime Super Deluxe isn’t just more of the same. Well, it is in that it’s more of the same make-shapes-to-make-music brilliance that we fell in love with in the original game, but it’s not just that. Zoe Mode has worked hard to improve Chime beyond simply dumping twenty new songs you’ve never heard of into the mix.

This is both good and bad. On the plus side, it’s this push to improve that keeps Chime going when other, more established music franchises are collapsing under the weight of their franchises. On the other hand, we would have liked more than just five new songs on top of the original track list.

Still; new features are never to be sniffed at and Zoe Mode has added plenty of them. These range from the purely aesthetic, such as the new background videos and menus, to the functional. There are little additions, such as the new ‘Perfect Quad’ system that gives you extra points for certain block configurations that leave no fragments behind, and big ones, such as the addition of multiplayer.


Multiplayer comes in two flavours; Co-operative and Versus. The former sees up to four players working together to fill a grid as fast as possible, at which point they progress to a new grid for the same song – a new level of progression that's been added to the singleplayer game too. The Versus mode is where the real fun lies, however, with up to four players working against each other and usually creating a cacophonous, colourful chaos in the process.

Competitive multiplayer in Chime Super Deluxe works simply, with the same basic rules as the standard modes complemented by the additional rule that players can ‘steal’ an opponent’s coverage by overwriting it with a majority of their own colour. As with the original game, however, a huge amount of fun can be extrapolated from this basic rule-set, with players sneakily stealing coverage from their enemies while they're distracted by the explosions of colour and music.


It’s these bursts of feedback that help make Chime Super Deluxe’s multiplayer so addictive, of course. Just as with the original game, it doesn’t really matter if you’re any good at the game or not, as the experience of playing it is enough to keep you engaged. Where singleplayer is entrancing and meditative, Zoe Mode’s Brynley Gibson told us that ‘a lot of people like to play it when they come back from the club,’ with a knowing smile – the multiplayer is frantic and hilarious.

Beyond the multiplayer mode, few of the new features merit a detailed examination, although this stems from their small, iterative nature rather than their worthlessness. Chime Super Deluxe is going to be the definitive version of Chime, and we already know we’ll be picking it up as soon as possible. Still, it’s the multiplayer and the new songs – which span from beatboxing remixes to chiptune anti-anthems and classical compositions – which have us excited. The new menu design, the ‘Perfect Quads’, the music videos; all good stuff and worthwhile additions, but too small to generate any hype.

Then again, Chime Super Deluxe doesn’t really need much more in the way of hype. We'd still pick it up even if it was just more of the same; that’s how much we love it.

Chime Super Deluxe is being developed by Zoe Mode and will see an exclusive release on PlayStation Network in spring 2011.