Bust-A-Move Bash! review

Bust-A-Move as a game in itself is all well and good; shooting balls up into a big wall of sinking colored bubbles, clearing levels by hitting the same color, then moving on to the next. You have to think about aiming cleverly and rebounding off walls and it’s good as a distraction.

Unfortunately, on Wii nothing has changed - apart from using the remote to clumsily aim the shooter - and without any massive attempt to bolster this simple puzzler, it feels like a very weak package for our new gameboxes.

Oh wait - actually they have added on a little shooting game to try and make it more appealing. This intersperses the main levels, cropping up each time you’ve cleared 10 stages. Bubbles of different colors float down or across the screen, and you get a little crosshair to aim with. You have to change the crosshair to match the color of the ball you’re aiming at by pressing the easily accessible plus and minus buttons. This means you have to hold the remote in two hands: one to aim, and one to press buttons to change the color, which is just about the clumsiest combination of button presses to map this game to. 

But perhaps the multiplayer is supposed to be the focus, rather than the basic and uninspiring Puzzle mode. Offering simultaneous play for eight players (four on nunchuks and four on remotes) with everyone playing on the same game screen, it’s certainly a tempting idea. Unfortunately after five minutes with even just a couple of players, all the ball action becomes totally confusing, empty and aimless.