Astropop Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

A new puzzle game in the mould of Puzzle Bobble with maybe a hint of Arkanoid thrown in.

I am not the puzzle game specialist here at Mobilegamefaqs, that particular accolade belongs to one of my colleagues. However, I have the handset that Astropop plays on so I got the pleasure of playing it.

The graphics are not amazing, but then puzzle games have never focused on graphics as much as other genres have. The game is full of colour however as the blocks that you have to get rid of are blue, green, orange and red and very much in the puzzle bobble vein. The ship itself has some detail and the space background is sufficiently ??arcadey?? to convey a nice look for the game. The special laser you can use has a nice looking lightning effect so overall the game is well presented.

The sound is minimal with no tune, no general sound effects and nothing when you die or continue. The only sound that there is, is when the laser is charged up which is actually quite good. It almost has the same sound as when the proton packs were turned on in Ghostbusters (remember that anyone?) and there are some sounds as you blast away at the blocks. But this is an area that definitely needs improvement.

The controls are incredibly simple which is key for puzzle games. You can use the D or the key pad to move the ship left and right and at the edge of the screen, the ship will overlap if you keep pressing the same direction and appear on the opposite side. Press the main button, 5 or down to grab blocks and press it again or press up to release them. When your laser is charged, press * to activate it and press the main button, 5 or 8 to blast away as the timer counts down. Easy.

The playability is pretty good. The game is very similar to most puzzle games. There are a number of coloured blocks at the top of the screen and any combination of 4 blocks or more touching each other will pop them and make them disappear. You know the drill by now. In Astropop you can grab blocks and move them around with the ship able to grab up to 8 at a time so you find yourself frantically rearranging blocks to set up combos and clear the screen. There are lots and lots of different types of special blocks, from the ones which help such as nukes which take out an entire row or star blocks which make all of that colour become starred blocks which pop all blocks surrounding them, to the ones which hinder such as the stone blocks and the poison blocks which have to be popped by their surrounding blocks getting popped. Each level you have to pop a certain number of blocks represented by the bar on the right hand side. After a certain amount or score you will get a laser which you can use for a short period of time to blast away at the blocks directly.

The lastability is not bad. The game has two modes, classic and survival. In classic you play as the starting character but as the game progresses, you can unlock other characters and some additional features of the characters. The game will autosave your progress and auto load it as you play. I haven??t tried the survival mode but I hope it??s harder than the classic mode. So far the game has been pretty easy. That??s not to say that it??s not fun, because it is, but I??m hoping that the longer I play, I will actually face a decent challenge at some point.

It??s a nice addition to the puzzle genre with plenty of different types of blocks and fun to play.