The handheld gaming market is always the hotbed of puzzle games. Regardless if you have the most advanced or low-key hardware available, no one can stop the flood of puzzle games. A puzzle game seems to tap into the inner most desire of most gamers since they all seem to offer an easy pick up and play scheme. If you want a short game while waiting for lunch or an extended game while on a trip the puzzle game usually fills these voids. Unfortunately not every game is able to provide the same replayability of the classic Tetris which is the case with 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

The premise behind 7 Wonders of the Ancient World (7 Wonders) centers upon you traveling the globe building the 7 Wonders of the world. The building part of the game actually has your servants/workers taking blocks and building pieces of the 7 Wonders. The blocks start off at the top of the puzzle board and will fall to the workers below as you match 3 colored runes together. In addition to moving the blocks to the workers below you also have to remove all of the tiles of the game board, which is essentially clearing all of the runes that started on the stage. Once all of the tiles and blocks have been picked up by the workers below then you clear the stage. There is a timer that counts down and if the timer gets to zero then you lose a life which results in starting the stage over again.

There are three different game modes available to play in 7 Wonders. The Story mode has you visiting all of the locations to build the 7 Wonders. Free Play lets you play the selected locations you have already unlocked in Story mode. The Rune Quest mode is focused on removing a certain number of colored runes from the stage. Both the Story and Free Play mode use the same countdown timer system, while Rune Quest shows you the time to beat to get the best time for the stage.

Essentially that is the entire 7 Wonders game in just two paragraphs. We’ve seen this type of game before countless times on other consoles, handhelds and web-based games. You simply match three blocks of the same color in a row or column, that’s it. Once you’ve matched the colors together the three blocks are removed and more blocks appear. There are a few power-ups in the game but they add little to the excitement factor. The Lightning Ball will remove a row of runes when used and appears when you match four colored runes together. The Fire Ball will remove a row and column of runes and appear after you’ve matched five colored runes together. The Golden Flower appears after you’ve used four power-ups and will remove a random assortment of runes, up to twenty.

The game lacks that certain something to get you hooked on a puzzle game. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what that “something” is but it just doesn’t feel fresh or exciting. The game plays like any other puzzle game and doesn’t do enough to make it stand out from the crowd. You’re matching colored blocks, which is probably the gameplay of 80% of the puzzle games available today. The power-ups don’t offer enough to enhance the core gameplay and the limited gameplay modes will have you yawning after a couple boards. This is a puzzle game that will unfortunately not become a Wonder of the gaming world.

Gameplay 4.0
We’ve seen this game before, it’s called let’s connect the colored blocks together. The only true challenge comes from making sure you remove all of the tiles on the board so you can advance to the next stage. The colored runes never go away, they just keep coming.

Graphics 5.0
On several stages it can become difficult to determine if a tile is still on the puzzle board due to the backgrounds blending in with the colors. The animations and antics of your workers were a nice touch that should be enhanced if another game is developed. They would keep signaling for more blocks as you played the game.

Sound 5.0
The game had a decent soundtrack that played during the game but the same track was repeated on all of the stages.

Difficulty Easy
No one should have a problem with this game.

Concept 3.0
The only difference between 7 Wonders and other puzzles games are the 7 Wonders of the World. This feels and plays just like any other puzzle game you’ve played for the past ten years.

Overall 4.6
I can only recommend 7 Wonders of the Ancient World for those hardcore and dedicate PSP puzzle gamers looking for something new. Even then you will probably be disappointed after a few minutes of playing the game.