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All About...
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| Another beautiful bubble burster pops onto the scene. |
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| Hooray! This game is very happy! |
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Cute as a bug's ear, and sweet enough to make Cindy Brady gag, Bust A Move 4 has made its way to the PC. For those who may have missed the arcade game's previous incarnations, Bust A Move's promotional material is revelatory. "Bubble bursting fun for all ages," it says. Bubble bursting fun for all ages it provides.
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Bust-A-Move 4, the undisputed Queen Mother Of All Bubble-Popping Games, seems plucked from the imagination of the most sugar-addled child. Players step into the role of one of 10 cute little moppets (among them the cheery dragons Bub and Bob, the frog-suit wearing alien boy Kurol and Tam-Tam the animated totem pole) who are forced to compete in a balls-to-the-wall orb-popping contest. Simple controls, which may be operated via a PC pad or the keyboard, move a bubble shooter back and forth across the game's playing field. The goal is to shoot colored orbs upward and attach similarly colored ones together. If three balloons of the same color are linked, they will pop and collapse downward. Players can collapse huge strings of balloons by stacking up the goodies, then popping the orbs that are serving as supports. It's also possible to initiate bubble-exploding combinations (called "chain reactions") that can clear the playing field of balloons in a hurry. In two-player mode, sending a good crop of balloons crashing downward will have the added bonus of sending some unwanted ballast to the opposition. The ultimate goal, of course, is to smoke the other guy like a ham; a match ends when the balloons fill the screen past a dividing line, and as the colorful circles accumulate, the action becomes ever more frantic.
Cheerful tunes and overly colorful balloons and explosions, as well as unceasing bleats and exclamations from the saccharine-sweet characters, make Bust-A-Move 4 an experience to overwhelm the senses. At times, the stimuli are distracting, forcing a player to struggle to employ good popping strategies. Otherwise, the game plays just fine, and PC owners will enjoy the game's carefree blend of yappy, happy visuals and decidedly strategic contests. The two-player mode (either via the Network or head-to-head) will present bubble assassins a wonderful distraction from the real world, and serves as the game's greatest draw.
Small criticisms may be leveled at the game in its PC incarnation. A 420 Mb full install seems excessive for this rather simple arcade game, as does a 32 Mb RAM requirement. There's also a concern that the title suffers some when players are faced with the prospect of using the keyboard. Precision control is needed to make the bubble shooter move just so, and the keyboard control doesn't offer the exacting response the game demands. Buy a controller, Bust-A-Move says, or it's destination: Disappointmentville.
The Bottom Line: It's a fantastic four for the PC.
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Greg Orlando
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| "Buy a controller, Bust-A-Move says, or it's destination: Disappointmentville." |
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| Finish the puzzles fast enough and score big points! |
| The object, oddly, is to break the bubbles before your opponent does. |
| It's not looking good for Bub... |
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Interplay |
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Interplay |
| Genre |
Puzzle |
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If your system is good enough to go online to read Daily Radar, you can probably play Bust-A-Move 4.
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The dragon hero Bub, posessing one tooth and Godzillalike ridges running down his tiny back, seems to embody all that is right and good with the world. Manically happy, Bub seems content to pop his bubbles all day long, and not eat humans or smash things like other dragons are wont to do. "He is delighted to be back with his precious Bubbles," the game's instruction manual reads. "He is the main character of Bust-A-Move 4." Hoorah!
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