Bust a Move is a great puzzle/action game. You can play against the computer or with a friend or enemy. Basically the game is pretty simple. You have a little aimer arrow at the bottom of the screen that shoots bubbles in the appropriate direction. You only have a limited time to decide on the direction before the cannon fires for you, launching the bubble in the direction the cannon was last pointing. At the top of the screen are rows of bubbles of different colors.
Every so often they will fall one row towards the bottom of the screen. If any bubbles cross the line at the bottom of the screen, it's game over for you. In order to stop the mad, mad progression of bubbles, you must shoot your bubbles at like-colored bubbles. If a group of two or more bubbles that are blue, for instance, are hit by a blue bubble that you shot at them, then they will pop and disappear. If your aim is off, you will only make matters worse and the bubbles will begin to pile up at crazy angles until you lose the game.
The trick of the game is to pile up bubbles so that they hang below a cluster
of like-colored bubbles. Then you can shoot the necessary color of bubble at the base of the cluster and drop the rest. This works well to "trash" on your enemy. When you're "trashed" on the bubbles fly up from the bottom of the screen and stack themselves over any bubbles. This can be frustrating at times because there is the potential that you will be in the process of firing a well-aimed shot at a particular cluster of bubbles, and you pull the trigger and fire. All of a sudden a flurry of bubbles comes up from below and your well-aimed bubble lands harmlessly on top of a jumbled mess of sticky spheres.
Oh yeah, the person you're playing against is represented by a little sprite animation. There are different characters to choose from (Bub and Bob included) and they will make happy faces and gloat when things are going good and frown and cry when they're "trashed" on or are about to be smashed by bubbles.
The later games in the Bust a Move series (of which this game truly isn't a part of since it's just a fan remake of Puzzle Bobble which is the precursor to all Bust a Move games) add some other conventions like Puzzle Mode where you have to balance pulleys or the Chain Reaction Mode where any bubbles that fall will fly back up and connect to any exposed bubbles of the same color and cause a cacophony of lights and sounds and mayhem.
Definitely try this game out. You'll be hooked and looking for the others!!!!!!!
