With every new system comes the release of a new Bust-A-Move game. I think this series has been ported to nearly every system available since it’s release on SNK’s Neo Geo hardware in the early ‘90s. Are Majesco and Taito beating a dead horse, or is this a quality series built to withstand the test of time?

Facts and Features:

• Classic gameplay
  
  
• Fun touch screen control
  
  
• Multiplayer for up to 5 players!
  

Busted!
Most are probably already familiar with the premise behind the Bust-A-Move games, but for those who aren’t here is a quick synopsis. Bust-A-Move is a vertical puzzle game –- like many are -– where the goal is to match three or more bubbles of the same color, which causes them to pop and be out of your hair forever. When you start, there are a few rows of bubbles already stuck to the top of the field and you launch bubbles from the bottom to stick to the ones already on the top. After you launch several from the bottom, the ones on the top slide down a row. If the top bubbles make it to the bottom its game over. This can happen either by you bumbling your shots or from the ceiling lowering too much. Usually though it is a combination of the two. The nifty gimmick of this game is that you don’t just move left and right and fire straight up, you fire from a stationary point in the middle and fire your colorful bubbles at angles, and a lot of the time you have to angle your shots so they bounce off the sides to try and squeeze them in right where you want them.


Keep poppin'

The DS version of Bust-A-Move really doesn’t stray from this all that much. That is probably why the series has lasted this long. Don’t mess with a good thing, right? With the DS touch screen, you can launch your bubbles like a slingshot. You grab them with the stylus and pull back and either left or right to get your angle and then release to fire. You aren’t married this control scheme though. If you would rather have a more traditional experience, just take a trip to the options screen and set your controls to the D-pad. They have also added more than one way to play for the single minded gamer. Of course you have the endless mode where it is just you VS the bubbles, but there is also a puzzle mode where you have to figure out how to un-bury the glowing puzzle markers and pop them before you get buried yourself. This mode is a nice change from the attack of the bubbles and there are A LOT of puzzle stages to work your way through. If you are so determined it will take quite awhile to finish them all. You can also challenge up to four computers in a multiplayer VS mode. The VS mode is pretty much what you would expect from a puzzle game. The last one standing wins, and by popping big bubble combos you throw “junk” on the other players’ fields. They were also nice enough to throw in single card multi player for up to five players. Thank you, Taito.

Once You Pop, You Can't Stop
Bust-A-Move DS is a good game. There isn’t all that much that is new, but eh... so what. There is plenty to do single player wise, and the multiplayer is good as well. Majesco and Taito know they have a good thing going with this series, and as long as they keep throwing the bubbles at me I will keep on popping them.

-- Nate Gleaves