Bubblyz

Bubblyz Posted in Puzzle on 14 Oct 2008

Reviewed by Steve Litchfield

User’s rating: (11 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)  Loading ...

Editor’s rating:

There’s something delightfully simple about the bubble shooter genre – no convoluted plot to learn, no complicated controls, no statistics to keep in mind, you can even get away with slow reflexes. There’s just the simplicity of firing up bubbles to make combinations of three or more of the same colour. And they pop! Clear a level and you get some more. And more. And so on, to while away a short or lengthy hiatus in your life.

Bubblyz won’t make any jaws drop but it’s a solidly implemented game. By default, you angle your ‘bubble gun’ using an on-screen touch control, but you can set it to use the accelerometer instead if you really want to. There’s even a ‘Reverse tilt’ option for those of you who think that the playing field should be tilting rather than the bubble gun, and you can fiddle with the ‘Tilt sensitivity’ if needed. I stuck solidly with the on-screen control though, and had no problems. Left handers should note that you’ve been thought of too, with an option to switch the Fire button to the left hand side of the screen.

In addition to matching up bubble colour combinations, there are special bubbles, e.g. bomb bubbles that burst a handful of whichever colour they come into contact with, or row creation bubbles that turn every bubble on the contact row the same colour, making them easier to get rid of. Together with the advancing ceiling, which gets lower by one ‘notch’ every time the right-hand-side timer bar fills up, these extra elements spice up gameplay nicely and stop things getting boring.Maybe I’m a little colour blind, but there is one big annoyance in Bubblyz – the creators have used several bubble colour pairs that are just too close to each other – the dark blue/purple ones in particular are VERY hard to distinguish in the heat of the action and I constantly sent the wrong bubble up to join the wrong pair. This can be easily fixed in an update, hopefully. Or maybe I just need new glasses?This glitch notwithstanding, Bubblyz is a lovely little game and great for long journeys, either for you or your kids. There’s a cute stereo music soundtrack, but this can thankfully be turned off, to avoid driving your travelling companions mad!