Faeries vs Darklings: A ridiculously good-looking Bejeweled clone

It's as if Atari said to themselves when planning their newest social game, "When you can't beat 'em, you might as well join them." Faeries vs Darklings (FvD) by Atari is, for all intents and purposes, Bejeweled Blitz with a new skin, some new characters and a slight variation on gameplay. Players in FvD are tasked with either protecting the forest lands as a Faerie or destroying them as a Darkling. This is done through a match-three game, of course--you know, the genre that PopCap had well-covered for years?

While FvD is certainly a wonderful game that serves the genre of match-three well, I simply cannot get past the fact that new Bejeweled rips are still being created by major studios. Puzzle Quest admittedly is a Bejeweled clone, but its story and role-playing game elements do enough to justify its existence. The most obvious differences between FvD and games like Bejeweled Blitz and Puzzle Quest are that FvD sessions don't run on a one minute timer and enemies don't have hit points. And that's about it.

Find more of our impressions after the break.