I’m clearly a bit late to the party regarding Bejeweled 2 from Popcap Games. Besides being constantly bombarded by Facebook messages telling me that my friends had achieved a new high score, I’d never even heard of the game. Until, that is, my iPod Touch became one of my most treasured possessions, giving me constant access to inexpensive but fun games on the go.

I’ve only been playing about a week – and find that the ultra portable nature of the iTouch allows me to grab a few moments of gaming at every available opportunity. Waiting for a train, a television programme to start, or food to be ready is no longer dead time, it’s Bejeweled time.

Previous favourite Angry Birds has been consigned to history now I’ve got this baby installed.
And the cost of this life-changing application? A measly £1.79. Eat that, Call of Duty!!!

Yeah, I’ve owned Gameboys and PSPs in the past but my games library has been somewhat limited by their extortionate cost. It’s criminal that handheld games often boast inferior graphics, sound, storylines, modes or longevity compared with their namesakes on the larger home-based consoles but cost just as much.

Anyway, I digress… until the other day I thought I was becoming quite a whizz at this gem-induced puzzler, racking up some seemingly impressive scores. Along the way, I was even managing to match plenty of identical jewels in four- and five-strong lines to trigger either satisfying explosions or the removal of a colour of my choosing.

Well, the efforts of a guy called Mike from California mean I’ve got some way to go… He’s racked up some 2,000 hours of gameplay (that’s a lot of dead time, eh?) and a mammoth 2,147,482,575 score (amassing 4.8m gems and reaching level 439 in the process, according to an article on Yahoo!)

And I thought the Asteroids record breaker the other week was mad!

(Photo credit: B twan)