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Introduction
Oh the hours we’ve spent playing puzzle games, captivated by their falling blocks, mesmerized by their tidy rows of colored baubles, fascinated by the way these deceptively simple games test our pattern recognition skills and problem solving abilities, push our logical minds into overdrive and sweep us into deep states of concentration.
On the surface, a good puzzle video game may appear to be nothing more than an addictive little treat, but at its core lies the kind of substantive stuff that has challenged and enthralled humans throughout the ages.
Here’s a list of our Top 5 puzzle games. Check it out then tell us your favorite puzzle games.
Tell us: What are your Top 5 favorite puzzle games?
-- Winda Benedetti";
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'Tetris'
This falling-block puzzle game – invented by Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 – went on to invade the hearts and minds of gamers (and non gamers) the world over. More importantly, it went on to become the granddaddy of puzzle games.
As blocks of various shapes and colors drop from the top of the screen, players are challenged to place these geometric shapes together in a way that creates rows of same-colored blocks – which then makes the blocks disappear. Players must work quickly to keep the shapes from piling up to the top of the screen.
Not only has this gameplay mechanic inspired a slew of sequels and knockoffs, but it is also the foundation for some of the best games in the puzzle genre today, such as “Lumines” and “Planet Puzzle League.”";
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'Bust-A-Move'
Also known as “Puzzle Bobble,” Taito’s massively popular bubble-shooting game first appeared in 1994 and has been reincarnated many times since. Here players fire colored bubbles from a launcher at the bottom of the screen, trying to connect them with matching-colored bubbles above. You must connect at least three or more bubbles of the same color to make them disappear and, hopefully, to clear the entire screen before the bubbles move downward to the bottom of the screen.
In excellent puzzle tradition, this game seems simple on the surface and yet is full of the kind of nuanced charms that keep you wanting to shoot more and more bubbles.";
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'Bejeweled'
PopCap’s jewel-matching game launched in 2001 and promptly began addicting players around the world. Here you’re given a grid filled with different kinds of jewels. Jewels must be swapped with adjacent jewels to create vertical or horizontal lines of three or more matching gems. The game’s true challenge, however, is to figure out how to match multiple sets of three in only one move. And it gets especially thrilling when a single move triggers an ongoing chain reaction of gem connections.
“Bejeweled” has played a significant role in the recent resurgence of “casual games” and has spawned countless “match-three” imitators as well as some excellent innovators, including 2007’s match-three/RPG fusion “Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.”";
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'Picross'
“Picross” takes the Suduko craze, melds it with a bit of crossword-style brain-teasing and tosses in a bit of “Minesweeper” to create a unique grid-based puzzler that, when properly puzzled through, reveals a picture (the name stands for “Picture Crossword” after all).
Nintendo launched “Picross” for the handheld DS in 2007 (though its roots go back to “Mario’s Picross” for the Game Boy). Here you use number hints on the outside of a grid to figure out which squares to fill in inside the grid. As the squares are filled in, a hidden picture is revealed.";
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'Portal'
Unlike anything else out there, the wildly cool action/puzzle game “Portal” launched as part of Valve’s much-praised “Orange Box” package in 2007 and quickly gained a rabid fan base.
Played from the first-person perspective, “Portal” finds the player in a mysterious place called the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Accompanied by the disembodied artificial-intelligence voice of GLaDOS, you must move through a series of potentially deadly test chambers – a task that can only be accomplished by the careful placement of “portals” (space-bending doorways with the ability to teleport you from point A to point B).
The game's writing and music is fantastic, the gameplay is utterly unique and the puzzles you’ll find yourself up against are truly brain bending.
Tell us: What are your Top 5 favorite puzzle games?
";
// END editorial data