This weeks DS game of the week is a rather old title (as DS games go), but it’s still one that can suck up vast amounts of free time. For anyone who’s not really into puzzle games, just keep moving on to the next post. However, for anyone who can easily get sucked into a tetris marathon or who wastes away the hours at work playing bejeweled, Bust-A-Move is right up your alley.

To tell the truth, I’ve been a fan of Bust-A-Move ever since I first played it on a friends Sega Saturn “back in the day”. Even before that, I used to love a good session of Bubble Bobble on my old NES. My sister and I even spent an entire afternoon once and beat all 40 million levels (or however many there were) of that mind numbingly repetative game. Needless to say, those friendly little dragons hold a special place in my heart.

Anyway, for those who have never played this game, let me try to explain it a bit. At it’s heart, this is a matching game. You’re presented with rows of colored bubbles which hang from the ceiling and your job is to fire new bubbles towards those at the top of the screen and try to connect 3 or more bubbles of the same color. If you succeed, those bubbles pop and anything that is hanging below them falls. You continue to shoot bubbles until the screen is bubble-free. It sounds easy, but it can be rather difficult. The trick is that the bubbles on the ceiling multiply if you’re not able to pop them fast enough. They continue to move towards you sort of Space Invaders style. If the mass of ceiling bubbles reaches you, you lose. It’s basically Tetris in reverse, and with bubbles instead of blocks.

The thing that really sets Bust-A-Move apart from all the other Tetris clones though is the method used to place new bubbles. Where Tetris allows you to move and rotate new blocks right into the right spot, Bust-A-Move provides you with a fixed slingshot mounted at the center of the bottom screen. From there, you’re required to angle your shots so they contact the bubble mass in just the right place. On the console versions of this game, this is done by using the d-pad to adjust your aim and then pressing one of the buttons to fire off your bubble. The DS version is a little different though and it’s this difference that makes this game such a perfect port for the DS. With your slingshot mounted in the top-center of the touch screen, you use your stylus to draw back the slingshot and adjust your aim. To fire the bubble, you simply “let go”. It’s perfect!

With several single and multi-player modes, this game offers lot’s of ways to get your bubble popping freak on. And although it seems fairly simple on the surface, this game could easily be described with that old tag line used by Mattel at the height of the Othello craze… “A minute to learn… A lifetime to master.” Making sure your angles are just right is a fine art, and if you miss… you can create a big mess real quick. Gamespot gives this iteration of this classic franchise a 7.3, but I’d give it at least an 8 or 8.5 on replay value alone. If you enjoy your DS on your commute or in quick bursts, puzzle games are the way to go. And this puzzle game is one of those that gets funner the more you play and improve your bubble popping skillz.