Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle

Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle is a puzzle arcade game, that was released by Namco in 1992; it runs on the company's NA-1 hardware, and as its name suggests, it's the sequel to Cosmo Gang: The Video, which was released in the previous year. It is also the sixth game from the company to feature scores that do not end in "0" (and the first of this type that does not use a Yamaha YM-2151 FM sound chip) - and the American version was the fourth game from the company to feature that Federal Bureau of Investigation's "Winners Don't Use Drugs" screen in its attract sequence. In 1993, the same year this game was ported to the SNES, Namco Hometek (the company's American direct-to-console division) released an adaptation of it for the SNES and Sega Genesis featuring Pac-Man characters under the name of Pac-Attack; it also introduced a Puzzle Mode, which had 100 levels and a password feature.

The players must stack the falling Jammers (or a new type of Cosmo Ganger called "Pipopapo-Tai"), and Containers into groups by using their joysticks, to move pieces left, right and down and pressing their buttons, to rotate them; when a player fills a line of Containers, they will disappear. When a ball appears, note which direction the arrow on it is facing, as it will move in that direction when it drops - and it will eliminate any Cosmo Gangers it hits on its way down to the bottom of the screen. If you've chosen to start the game on "Normal", "Hard" or "Expert" level, the "Star Meter" will fill up every time a ball eliminates a Cosmo Ganger; once it's completely filled, a Star will fall down from the top of the screen and eliminate seven rows of Cosmo Gangers when it lands. The two-player mode can, like in The Return of Ishtar (and all six of the games), be played with one credit - and in that mode, not only will eliminating a lot of Cosmo Gangers at once result in a higher score but it will also cause a group of your side's Cosmo Gangers to fall down, on your opponent's side of the screen. As with other falling puzzle games, your game will be over once your pieces reach the top of the screen.