Swing Download (1997 Puzzle Game)

This entertaining, addictive, simple yet inspired game comes from the creators of Tetris and will have you playing for hours just as that original block-piling creation did.

Although the concept of Swing is much improved, it's easy to pick up. By means of three keys only, you control an industrial ball dropper over a set of four two-handed scales. By dropping a weighted ball, you build horizontal lines of colored balls across these eight arms. The idea is to match up three or more balls of the same color, which then disappear, and increase your score.

The weight and nature of the balls has to be taken into consideration at all times. More than 20 types of special balls exist that can play havoc with your balanced piles and any game strategy that you were executing at the time. There are also balls that shoot out of one side of the screen in an attempt to throw you, such as weighted dummies and bombs. The special balls can be wildcards that help you complete a line, explosive ones to clear a path or blocked ball and even transforming ones that will benevolently change the color of surrounding balls.

Graphically, the game is beautifully rendered in a colorful and fluid way. The screen and player interface creates an illusion of industrial process and efficiency. The sound is also impressive and matches the factory mood and mechanical images. The gameplay, as you can imagine, is easy to grasp and becomes an absorbing time waster as you feel yourself slowly becoming addicted to this fiendish and wonderful game.

Graphics: Colorful, clear and atmospheric

Sound: Complements the industrial theme of the game

Enjoyment: Fiendishly addictive!

Replay Value: Easy to pick up, very hard to stop playing

Swing is a Tetris inspired puzzle game: At the top of the screen you see two lines of eight balls ("spheres") in different colors and weights (shown as numbers). At the bottom are four scales. You can transport and put down one sphere at the same time through a grey device between the two parts described above. Three spheres of the same color side by side will disappear and give you points; all other same spheres in vertical or horizontal neighborhood to this three will also vanish (combos)! The clue are the scales because of imbalance they go up or down and can catapult the spheres over the whole area! And there can be highest only eight spheres on one scale pan - otherwise game over. Later in a game there will be more and more colors and special items. The multiplayer mode is even more funny because there you have to make big combos for better items which you can catapult into your opponents area!

Swing is one of the better Tetris clones released commercially. The falling block routine remains the same, but made much trickier by the addition of weight element. Your goal is to match three or more balls of the same color to make them disappear, as they fall down to a number of balances/swings at the bottom. The fact that each balls has different weight makes things more challenging, because naturally heavy balls would tilt the swing if the balls on the other end of the balance are relatively lighter. Tilt it enough, and the lighter balls will pop out of the balance and go flying around the screen.

The gameplay is even more complicated when 'rogue balls' start to drop. These have special affects that will either help or hinder your efforts. The rogue balls make two-player splitscreen game a lot of fun, because you can flip them into your opponent's screen too cause all sorts of havoc. On the downside, the game has an annoying bug whereby sometimes your high score is not recorded on the high score table. Also there are inexplicably many pauses during the game, which break the game flow and are nothing but a nuisance.

If you enjoy Tetris, you will definitely like Swing. It is much harder, more varied, and breathes new life in to the familiar formula with many original features.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Swing have also downloaded:
TrackMania, Swap, Switchball, Tower of Goo Unlimited, Ultimate Spin Doctor for Windows, TrackMania Sunrise, Triazzle, Stoneloops! of Jurassica