Hands on with Bust-A-Move: Mobile Mania

Part of Square Enix's commitment to energizing its presence in mobile outside of Japan involves reviving classic games.

Bust-A-Move: Mobile Mania leads the charge by shrinking down the series' bubble-popping play to mobile. Although there's little new to differentiate this version of the game from previous iterations, our hands-on play has us convinced it'll be soaking up hours of our time nevertheless. Such is the enduring strength of this ever-popular puzzle concept.

If you've never encountered it, the premise of Bust-A-Move is simple: create groups of like-colored bubbles to make them disappear from the screen. Bubbles of various colours – blue, green, red, yellow, and purple – stream down from the top of the screen. Using a launcher to shoot out individual bubbles from the bottom, your goal is to connect groups of three or more bubbles with the same colour. Allow the stream of bubbles to reach the bottom of the screen and the game ends.

Naturally, the levels increase in difficulty as you progress through the game. Bubbles fill the screen more quickly and the launcher deals you bubbles that are harder to work with. Skilful movements of the launcher can help get you out of sticky situations but you have to be precise with your aim. Moving the bubble launcher is done via the directional pad, while tapping the center key launches a bubble once you've set the direction.

How long you hold down a direction on the pad influences the angle at which your bubble is released. This obviously impacts where it lands in relation to the streaming field of bubbles at the top of the screen. While the baseline goal is to clear groups of three bubbles, it's possible to line up larger groups of bubbles for greater effect. Succeed in eliminating a big batch of bubbles and whatever is left cascades down for potential combos.

Two modes are offered: a single-player Story and a Versus option, which enables quick play online. Story mode pits you against bubble boss Woolen following a series of progressively harder stages. Work your way through the 'plot' and you unlock other characters to beat.

Meanwhile, Nokia's SNAP mobile platform is being leverage for real-time online gameplay for two players. To the right of the your bubble field rests a miniature snapshot of your competitor's screen. As you clear bubbles from your field, some will transfer over to your opponent's field. Whichever player fails to prevent the bubbles from reaching the launcher loses the game. Win-loss records are tied to a unique game handle that you create when first play online.

And it's head-to-head online matches that top the list of reasons to keep an eye on Bust-A-Move. While the single-player portion of the game is likely to be entertaining, it won't be anything you haven't played before in the franchise's 15-year run and so the majority of the appeal comes from competition against another human. Indeed, we expect to resolve all our arguments with acquaintances via this method.

Click 'Track It!' to follow our coverage of Bust-A-Move as it nears its December release.