I have not played a Bust-A-Move game in probably close to a decade. This hasn�t been for lack of releases; this �match three� puzzle series has tons of games available on a variety of systems, but I simply never got around to it. So when a 600 Point (800 in Europe, I believe) version was released on WiiWare recently, I jumped on it and was glad I did.
The premise is simple, you are faced with a screen full of descending colored bubbles and must launch more bubbles at them to match three or more of a color; a successful match will cause those bubbles to disappear, and you keep at it until you either triumphantly clear the field or a bubble goes below your launching line and you lose. It�s fast, but not overly so since you get a few seconds to think your next move over. And the controls are easy, with the primary way to play being to hold the Wiimote sideways.
There are a few twists that make things interesting. For one, you don�t have to launch bubbles in a straight path. If you can manage it, banking them off of a stage wall can get bubbles toward the ones at the top of the stage quickly, with a match not only bursting the ones up there, but all the ones that were dangling from them as well. You also get a few special bubbles to use, including an explosive fire one that clears out all adjacent bubbles, a star one that clears out all bubbles of the same color it hit, a steel ball that destroys almost anything in its path, and a rainbow one that either acts as a hindrance, or could perhaps be used in some �combos.�
There are dozens of stages to play through, which is a good thing since many of them can be cleared in anywhere from under fifteen seconds to about two minutes. Having a battle mode helps as well, letting you go head-to-head against either the computer or a friend. The only problem here is a lack of online play, which a �lag tolerant� game like this would have been very well suited to. But with some of the later stages requiring some very careful thinking, this isn�t a crippling loss.
This is admittedly something of a light version of Bust A Move, and the add-on stage packs each costing 200 Wii Points seems a little odd in light of that. But the main game is definitely fun, and I have no problem paying a light price for a �light game� that is nonetheless enjoyable. Bust A Move Plus is a pretty good deal for its price, even if you�re not normally a fan of the �match three� puzzle genre.
